PTO Board of Directors
Board Officers
Kelly Howe (President)
Kelly Howe is an activist, teacher, artist, writer, and dialogue facilitator based in Oak Park, Illinois. As a faculty member at North Central College, she teaches courses in performance and social change, theatre history, script analysis, and acting; she also directs plays and mentors students interested in theatre for dialogue, applied theatre, community-based or devised performances, dramaturgy, and/or theory and criticism. Her writing appears in Text and Performance Quarterly, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Topics. Kelly’s research interests include Theatre of the Oppressed and other forms of activist performance; community-based performance; critical pedagogy; and feminist, queer, and critical race theory. Her dissertation examined North American adaptations of Augusto Boal’s Legislative Theatre experiment. Recently she began writing about the satirical agit-prop performances of the group Billionaires for Wealthcare, as well as other theatrical contributions to conversations on U.S. health care reform, 2008-2010. She has facilitated summer performance devising programs for youth in Louisville’s Portland neighborhood, and she currently sits on the advisory board for the Houston Forum For Arts In Health. As an artist, she specializes in collaborative devising, Forum Theatre, and new play direction. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Theatre and English from Muhlenberg College.
Alexander Santiago-Jirau (Past-President)
Alexander Santiago-Jirau is a Master's candidate in Educational Theatre at New York University, focusing on Theatre of the Oppressed, Applied Theatre and Drama in Education. Since receiving a degree in Urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University, Alex has worked in neighborhood planning, environmental justice, teacher recruitment and youth development for various New York City non-profits. An educator, advocate and theatre artist committed to the use of theatre for community development, Alex has been a Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner for nine years; he has studied under Augusto Boal and has facilitated multiple workshops with queer youth, youth in foster care, and diverse immigrant communities. In his present position as Associate Program Director for Career Development at The Center for Arts Education, Alex counsels youth pursuing arts careers and leads professional development workshops for New York City educators and youth development professionals. In 2008 Alex co-founded The Forum Project, a training and facilitation company that designs custom workshops, community projects, performances, and trainings around social justice issues.
Katherine Burke (Secretary)
Katherine Burke teaches in the School of Theatre and Dance at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. In 2010, she co-wrote and directed May 4th Voices, an original devised theatre performance derived from the May 4th Oral History Project, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the tragic shootings at Kent State. At Purdue Univerity she was the founding director of HumanRITE, an interactive theatre ensemble dedicated to social change. She has facilitated TO and other applied theatre workshops across the US and in the countries of Georgia and Tunisia. Katherine is also a professional actor, singer, and director.
Charles Adams (Treasurer)
Charles Adams is ABD in the Theatre Historiography program at the University of Minnesota. His research is in areas of theatre and social change, especially in the fields of Theatre in Education, critical pedagogies, and transformation. He has worked as a teaching artist for 15 years, training novice teaching artists as well as teaching educators in methodologies and philosophies for using embodiment as a means of resisting dehumanizing modes of education.
Board Members
Hector Aristizabal
Hector Aristizabal is a native from Medellin Colombia and currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. Hector's commitment to human rights work forced him to leave his country in 1989 due to death threats. Hector holds an MA degree in Psychology from Colombia and a degree as a Marriage Family Therapist from Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena. As the Founder, Director of ImaginAction, Hector works as an independent consultant for several organizations in different cities of the US and Canada. He travels internationally to countries such as: Colombia, Mexico, Jamaica, Germany, The Netherlands, England, Greece, Croatia, Ireland, Austria, India, Israel and Palestine, offering his unique blend of techniques combining Theater of the Oppressed and "Council Circle" to work with communities dealing with difficult challenges.
Melinna Bobadilla
Melinna "Teatrina" Bobadilla Chávez is a Chican@ teatrista, TO practitioner, actor, singer, bilingual teaching artist and Capricorn currently pursuing her MA in Educational Theater [in Colleges and Communities] in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. She hails from California where she attended UC Berkeley and majored in Ethnic Studies with a focus on Chican@ arts and media, thus solidifying her passion for the fusion of theater and the struggle for social justice to create "a world where many worlds fit" (EZLN). Melinna trained with Teatro Visión of San Jose, CA in Chicano Theater and Theater of the Oppressed at their summer Institúto de Teatro. She has facilitated workshops and lectured on both Theater of the Oppressed and Chicano Theater at UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State University, various high schools throughout CA, migrant education programs, the Garment Worker's Center, and most notably, at the International Hip Hop Symposium in Havana Cuba where she led a workshop and created a Hip Hop Forum Theater piece focusing on the spread of HIV/AIDS in Cuba. In 2005, Melinna began training with prestigious playwright/director Luis Valdez (Zoot Suit, La Bamba) at the renowned El Teatro Campesino (The Farmworker's Theater Company), which was founded by Valdez in 1965 in solidarity with the farm worker's struggles led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. With El Teatro Campesino, Melinna served as an artistic associate, ensemble member, and most recently as the Educational Theater Program Coordinator. She has also worked with MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) as their Youth Leadership Program Coordinator, directing after-school programming for LA high school students focusing on the power of using art as a vehicle for social change, as well as providing culturally relevant, civil rights oriented lessons. She was a core ensemble member of Teatro East of the River (LA) and has performed with theater troupes such as ChUSMA,Head Rush and is currently performing with the New York based group ACES(Arte Colectivo en Solidaridad/ Arts Community Education Solidarity). She is passionate about using theater (Chicano/bilingual/hip hop/guerilla/ TO) and popular education in contributing to the mental/social/economic and spiritual liberation of all oppressed people, especially immigrant, indigenous and youth of color communities. Consientização! In' Lak Ech.
Jasmin Cardenas
Jasmin Cardenas is an arts educator, storyteller, actress, choreographer and TO practioner. Using theater as a social change agent she enjoys facilitating TO workshops for youth from vastly different communities to come together and dialogue on difficult topics in hopes of finding solutions and common ground. As a writer, performer and producer she created and tours ‘Niña Buena?', a one woman show that explores her Colombian roots and first-generation-American-status. As a storyteller she can be found performing folk tales and personal stories for all ages in the U.S. and abroad and is performing member of Serendipity Theater Collective's 2nd Story: Monthly Series Cycle. This Chicago native is an arts educator in partnership with Lookingglass Theater Co., Silk Road Theater Co and ENLACE Chicago, amoung others.
Jiwon Chung
Jiwon Chung is the artistic director of Kairos Theater Ensemble and adjunct professor at the Starr King School at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, where he teaches Theater and Social Justice. The focus of his work is in the application of theater as a tool for social and political change, using TO to challenge, resist and transform systemic oppression and structural violence, and to redress large scale historical atrocity and global injustice. He also works locally on the creation of wrap-around behavioral health care systems for underserved immigrant communities and refugee micro populations in the bay area. His approach to individual, interpersonal and institutional change is informed by his background as a veteran, martial artist and 3 decades of vipassana meditation.
Ben Fink
Ben Fink is a Joker, teacher, director, singer, and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has facilitated TO workshops and performances in the United States and Germany, in secondary and postsecondary educational settings. Ben is an instructor in the department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, where he uses techniques from PO and TO to teach cultural studies as a path to citizenship and public engagement. Ben was co-producer of the 2009 PTO Conference.
Simon Malbogat
Simon is a co-founder of Mixed Company Theatre and its Artistic Director. A Forum Theatre specialist, Simon has been acting and directing for more than 35 years. He has studied with theatre icons Augusto Boal, Jerzy Grotowski, and Eugenio Barba. Simon has led workshops in schools, communities and workplaces, in Canada and internationally. He has directed productions across Canada, from the Belfry in Victoria, B.C., to the Centaur in Montreal, Quebec. Internationally, he has brought Mixed Company's work to Finland, Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, India and Brazil. Simon has directed more than 100 Forum Plays including Mixed Company's Dora Mavor Moore Award-nominated plays, Showdown and HIV/AIDS Toolbox. Simon has also taught theatre at the University of Toronto, Brock University, York University, Humber College and the Theatre Ontario Summer Programs at Brock University and Queen's University. Most recently, Simon and Mixed Company Theatre have been working with Ontario colleges to aid in the implementation of a new harassment law; Toronto Community Housing to create legislative theatre that is establishing new eviction policies; and the Ontario provincial government (Ministry of Health Promotions) to tour a province-wide initiative focusing on healthy eating, physical activity and substance misuse prevention.
Doug Paterson (Emeritus)
Doug Paterson is Professor of Theatre at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. While he has published on numerous topics, his passion remains theatre and social change. He is co-founder of three theatres including the Dakota Theatre Caravan in South Dakota, the Circle Theatre in Omaha, and an Omaha group dedicated to TO work. To date he has offered over 200 Theatre of the Oppressed workshops and presentations in Omaha, across the US, and around the world. International sites include Rio de Janeiro, Israel, Iraq, Liberia, Australia, India, Croatia, and Palestine. Doug began the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed series of international Conferences in 1995, now in its seventeenth year. Doug Paterson continues to work actively to promote the work of Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire and is a peace and social justice activist in the Great Plains.
Kate Wintz
Kate has been utilizing Theatre of the Oppressed since 2004 when she was introduced to it as one of Brent Blairs Theatre & Therapy students at USC and interned at Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, using TO to spark dialogue among adolescents in the foster care program. After graduating from San Francisco State University, she moved to her hometown of Omaha and assisted Doug Paterson in organizing the 2008 PTO Conference and has continued her work, including introducing TO to after-school programs and on-grounds at a local zoo. She is now in the University of Nebraska-Omaha pursuing an M.A. in Theatre Scholarship. Kate is also a teaching artist, dancer, and activist.
Sage Xaxua Morgan-Hubbard
Sage Xaxua Morgan-Hubbard earned her MA in Performance Studies at Northwestern University where she is currently a PhD student. She is a graduate of Brown University where she double majored in "Performance Studies: Socially Conscious Art of the Everyday" and Ethnic Studies. She is a poet, activist and teacher from Washington, D.C. She is the founder of WORD! spoken word artists and activists, a former DC poetry slam coach and one of the original members of Spoken Resistance and the performance group Sol y Soul, arts for social change.