Head, Playwriting/Directing Associate Professor, Playwriting/Directing
KJ Sanchez is the head of Playwriting/Directing and runs the M.F.A. in Theatre (Directing) program. She is a director, producer, playwright and sometimes actor. She’s the founder and CEO of American Records, dedicated to making theatre that chronicles our time, theatre that serves as a bridge between people. Sanchez recently directed Octavio Solis’s Quixote Nuevo, which was produced at Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Company in Boston and Alley Theatre in Houston.
Sanchez has directed across the country and internationally. Some U.S. venues include (select list) Urban Stages, The Gene Frankel Theatre and HERE Arts in New York City, The Guthrie Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Milwaukee Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Studio Theatre in D.C., Actors Theatre of Louisville, Two River Theater Company and Baltimore Center Stage. As a playwright, Sanchez has been produced at (select list) Berkeley Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Two River Theater Company, Frontera Rep, Round House Theatre, Cornerstone Theater Company and Off-Broadway at Urban Stages and HERE Arts.
As an actor, Sanchez 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 the voice of many characters on the cartoons Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go!. Sanchez is a Fox Fellow, Douglass Wallop Fellow and a recipient of the 2014 Rella Lossy Playwright Award and the National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Career Development Program.
What do you enjoy most about being a part of the UT Theatre and Dance community?
The community!
What is your favorite thing about Austin?
The green, the lakes and river and creeks, the tacos (requisite answer), the locally-sourced food, the music and the grackles (I really do like those crazy birds).
Directing for the Theatre, Playwriting, Producing, Acting
Advanced Director, Directing Methods and Practices, Rehearsal Practices, Viewpoints Training, Undergraduate Directing, Documentary Playwriting, Spectacle as a Political Tool (UGS)
Recent Publications
- ReEntry, Playscripts Inc. (2010)
- "A Night at the Opera" (co-author Tommer Peterson), Grantmakers in the Arts' GIA Reader Vol. 23 No. 1 (Winter, 2012)
- "Joining Forces," American Theatre Magazine (July/August 2011)
- Life in the Middle, Playscripts Inc. (2012)
Recent and Current Works
- Writing/directing/producing Project 19 - a series of documentary theatre works based on interviews with essential workers.
- Writing Lunar Thoreau, an adaptation of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, commissioned by The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Directing a new solo show written and performed by Aysan Celik, Abu Dhabi, UAE.