KJ Sanchez

Head, Playwriting/Directing Associate Professor, Playwriting/Directing

KJ Sanchez is the area head of the M.F.A. in Theatre, playwriting/directing programs. She is also the founder and CEO of American Records, dedicated to making theatre that chronicles our time. Sanchez recently directed José Cruz González’s American Mariachi, which was produced at The Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas.

As a director, Sanchez has worked with playwrights such as Octavio Solis, Karen Zacarías, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Martin Zimmerman and Kristoffer Diaz. Her productions – as a director/playwright – have been seen at (select list): The Guthrie Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, The Alley Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Playmakers Repertory Company, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Two River Theater Company, Frontera Repertory Theatre Company, Round House Theatre, Studio Theatre in Washington D.C., Cornerstone and Off-Broadway at Urban Stages, HERE Arts Center and the Gene Frankel Theatre.

As an actor, Sanchez has performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and internationally including the Toga-Mura Festival in Japan and the IberoAmericano Festival in Bogota, Columbia. She is a former member of Anne Bogart’s Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI) Company; she is the voice of many characters on the cartoons Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go. Sanchez is a Fox International Fellow at Yale University, Douglass Wallop Fellow at Washington College, a recipient of the Rella Lossy Playwright Award, an Associate Artist with The Civilians and a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect.

What do you enjoy most about being a part of the UT Theatre and Dance community?

The community, the energy, the love of new work!

What is your favorite thing about Austin?

Paddle boarding.

Jane Eyre production showing one woman with arms over head and another laying on a table

Directing for theatre, playwriting, documentary theatre, devising, dramaturgy, acting, physical training for actors, artistic entrepreneurship, artistic and administrative leadership

Directing I, Directing II, Spectacle as a Political Tool, Documentary Theatre, Methods and Practices, Modern Drama (Fundamentals), Professional Development Workshop, Studio I Design Theory and Practice, Methods and Practices, Collaboration with Design, Design Concepts for the Stage With Professor Raquel Barreto

Current Research/Artistic Work

The Radical Act of Listening: Making Investigative and Documentary Theatre - Author under contract with Routledge Publishing, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group
American Mariachi by José Cruz Gonzales - Director, The Alley Theatre, Houston, Texas, August-September, 2023

Past Research/Artistic Works: Playwriting and Directing

Walden (remix) - Playwright; An adaptation of the novel by Henry David Thoreau; Commissioned by The Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia.
- Staged readings: Kitchen Dog Theatre Company New Play Festival, Dallas, Texas, June 2023; Colorado New Play Festival, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, June 2022; The Alliance Theatre, September 2021.
Private Lives by Noël Coward - Adaptor and Director; A stage adaptation of Coward’s comedy, set in Argentina and Uruguay, with an all-Latine cast and Tango dancing; Arizona Theatre Company, Phoenix and Tucson, AZ. April-May 2023
Jar Full of Badness - Collaborator and Director; Three workshops of a new performance piece created by internationally celebrated performer Aysan Celik: Produced by American Records Theatre Company, Austin, Texas, December 2022; New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, January 2020 and July, 2021.
What-a-Christmas by Isaac Gómez - Director; world premiere, The Alley Theatre, Houston, Texas. November-December, 2022

Contact Information

Email address
kjsanchez@austin.utexas.edu

Campus location
WIN 1.162

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