MEET DR. JESSICA LITWAK

Theatre Artist, Trainer, Facilitator, Mentor, Coach

Jessica Litwak is a coach, an educator, award-winning playwright, actor, drama therapist, puppeteer, and recognized leader in the field of creative activism and socially engaged theatre. Working frequently with communities in conflict and oppressed populations around the world, Litwak successfully uses theatre performance and practice to heal trauma and promote change. As an expert puppet-maker and a trained practitioner of Playback, Psychodrama, and Theatre of the Oppressed, Litwak’s workshops are imaginative, compassionate, and responsive to the cultural and personal needs of her workshop participants. Her work has taken her to countries such as Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, India, and throughout Central, Eastern, and Western Europe. She is a core member of Theatre Without Borders and a Fulbright Scholar. 

In 2005, Litwak founded and began serving as Artistic Director of The New Generation Theatre Ensemble. She built training and performance opportunities for youth to learn how to build bridges between people of different cultures, ages, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations by making theatre in a safe community. In 2010, Litwak founded the H.E.A.T. Collective (www.theheatcollective.org) in order to coalesce her practice and workshops, events, and productions that bring together the practices of Healing, Education, and Activism through Theatre. In the days following the last 2016 election, she created a sister organization, called Artists Rise Up, New York, designed to create free theatre actions in response to the needs of the community.

Litwak is a graduate of RADA, NYU, Columbia University, and Antioch University with a BFA in acting, an MFA in playwriting, and a Ph.D. in Theatre for Leadership and Change. Plays include Dream Acts, A Pirate’s Lullaby, The Promised Land, Secret Agents, and Victory Dance, Terrible Virtue, Wider Than The Sky, Won’t Be Afraid, Terrible Virtue, My Heart is in the East, and 50,000 Mice. As an actress, Litwak has performed on stages across the U.S. and in Europe, she has appeared in film, television and has performed extensively on the radio.

She wrote and directed The Fear Project funded by the U.S. State Department with the Archa Theatre in the Czech Republic as well as at the Sabhagar Theatre Festival in Kolkata, India. She directed her play The Moons Of Jupiter at Naropa University in Colorado. She directed What Would You Name Her? at The Citizen’s Theatre in Glasgow. She has directed each of her plays for youth: GRIM, Postcards from Canterbury, The Great Journey Home, Verona High, and War: An American Dream, in New York and Massachusetts.

Litwak’s work as a teacher and workshop leader is far-ranging. She currently teaches at The Writing Salon and through the H.E.A.T. Collective and around the world as a visiting professor. Nationally, she has served as faculty at institutions such as Columbia, NYU, Lesley University, Whitman College, Hollins, Naropa, The Theatre Academy at Los Angeles City College, and Stella Adler Academy. Internationally, she has taught at Masaryk University (Czech Republic), Jadvipur University (India), the International Director’s Symposium at La Mama Umbria (Italy), and her workshops are frequently hosted by The Freedom Theatre and Yes Theatre in Palestine. She and has performed, taught, and conducted seminars for international bodies such as The Global Mobility Symposium, The North American Drama Therapy Association, The International Leadership Association, and The World Economic Forum. She has been a convener of the Arts and Peace Commission for The International Peace and Research Association and has served as an arts curator for The Rhodes campaign for the European City of Culture. She conducts ongoing theatre and drama therapy workshops at domestic violence shelters, prisons, and facilities for formerly incarcerated women. Her Puppets for the People workshop is featured in conferences around the globe.

As a playwright and cultural critic, Litwak is published by No Passport Press, TCG, Applause Books, Smith and Krause, and The New York Times. Her plays have been produced at The Goodman Theatre, Rattlestick Theatre, The Women’s Project, La MaMa, and The Edinburgh Festival, and are regularly included in compilations such as Drama Therapy Review, Engaged Scholar Journal, HowlRound, and TCG Salon. Her work has received support from the U.S. State Department (for The Fear Project with the Archa Theatre in the Czech Republic and the Sabhagar Theatre Festival in Kolkata, India).

Dr. Litwak is a public speaker, available to speak on a variety of subjects including Theatre as a Vehicle for Personal and Social Change and Creative Conflict Transformation. She is also available to teach a variety of workshops, and perform her educational one-woman plays: 50,000 Mice: The Selena Solomons Story, Emma Goldman: Love, Anarchy and Other Affairs, and The Wall, a Play with Puppets About Checkpoints and Borders. Ensemble plays available for local creation with an institution or a community includes Emma Goldman Day, GRIM, and The FEAR project. Links (HEAT, Dr. JL, etc.)