Alexander Santiago-Jirau

Education

BS in Urban and Regional Studies, Cornell University

MA in Educational Theatre, New York University

Alexander Santiago-Jirau (he/him/his) is Director of Education and Community Engagement at New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW). In this role, he oversees all of NYTW’s education and engagement initiatives, including the Mind the Gap (MTG) intergenerational theatre program, student matinees, in-school teaching artist residencies, after-school programs, master classes, administrative fellowships, and community-based programs. Some of his favorite work at NYTW has included developing educational materials and curating programming for the world premiere of David Bowie’s and Enda Walsh’s Lazarus directed by Ivo van Hove, the world premiere of Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown developed with and directed by Rachel Chavkin, Othello directed by Sam Gold featuring Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo, Heidi Shreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me, and Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play. Recent work has included facilitation of MTG devising intensive workshops in London, Chile, and North Carolina, and the creation of NYTW’s Youth Artistic Instigators ensemble.

A Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) practitioner who studied and worked with Augusto Boal, Alex has facilitated many workshops throughout his career, particularly with youth, educators and immigrant communities. He is Past-President of the Board of Directors of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., a national organization devoted to the work of liberatory educators, activists, artists, and community organizers, and current Vice Chair of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, a service organization for arts education practitioners.

Alex has presented his work at numerous conferences and his writing has appeared in The Indypendent, TYA Today, The Cross Border Project Blog, “Come Closer”: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of the Oppressed, The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed, and Applied Theatre with Youth: Education, Engagement, Activism. He has taught Latin American and Latinx Theatre at Drew University and currently teaches TO for the Department of Drama at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Educational Theatre program at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

He holds a BS in Urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University and an MA in Educational Theatre from NYU Steinhardt.

Course Taught: THEA-UT 632-Boal & Beyond: The Theory and Practice of the Theatre of the Oppressed

Areas of Expertise: Applied Theatre, Educational Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre with Youth, Arts Education, Teaching Artistry