David Montgomery
Director, The Program in Educational Theatre; Clinical Associate Professor
Music and Performing Arts Professions
212-998-5869
Dr. David Montgomery is the director of The Program in Educational Theatre in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University. He is a specialist in drama education, theatre for young audiences, directing, emerging teacher education and integrated arts, and he teaches foundational courses educational theatre and drama education for the program. As an actor and singer, David performed in numerous professional venues before working as a K-12 teaching artist in New York City, and full-time middle school drama teacher at I.S. 292 in Brooklyn, New York.
Dr. Montgomery is the artistic director of the New Play for Young Audiences (NPYA) series at the Provincetown Playhouse, a project sponsored by the Program in Educational Theatre where three new plays written by leading playwrights for young audiences are developed every summer. He has directed NYU study abroad programs in London, Dublin, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, and he directed the Looking for Shakespeare (LFS) Program, where High school students collaborated with him and NYU graduate students to shape an original production of Shakespeare. Other directorial credits include: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd (2024, NYU); Radium Girls by D.W. Gregory (2019, NYU); Walking Toward America by Sandra Fenichel Asher at Missouri Solo Play Festival in Springfield, MO (2018), The United Solo Theatre Festival in NYC (2015), Theatre of the Seventh Sister in Lancaster, PA (2012); and NPYA (2012); The Miracle Worker by William Gibson (2016, NYU); Little Shop of Horrors, book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken, based on the film by Roger Corman, screenplay by Charles Griffith (2014, NYU); Salvation Road by D.W. Gregory (2012, NYU); Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (2012, LFS) and The Winter's Tale (2011, LFS); The Bully Menace (devised, 2011, NYU); The Giver by Eric Coble from the story by Lois Lowry (2009, NYU); Nasty by Ramon Esquivel (2009, NPYA); Kindertransport by Diane Samuels (2008, NYU), Stories from the Magic Lake (devised, 2006, NYU) and Folktale Journey: Old Stories Told in New Ways (devised, 2004, NYU). He collaborated with Outlaws and Justice, an organization that infuses a dynamic interdisciplinary curriculum into school classrooms, using drama to help students make meaning of history and English Language Arts, and currently sits on the Arts Education Committee for the NYC Department of Education.
David published a book co-written with Dr. Robert Landy, the former director of the Drama Therapy Program at NYU, entitled Theatre for Change: Education, Social Action, Therapy (2012), currently being translated to Chinese (2026). He contributed a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Young People, co-written by Gina Grandi, Teresa Fisher and Jim DeVivo (2022). He wrote a chapter for The Handbook of Artistic Citizenship entitled ‘Applied Theatre and Citizenship in the Puerto Rican Community: Artistic Citizenship in Practice' (2016). He has written journal articles and collaborated on two chapters in Teaching US History: Dialogues Among Social Studies Teachers and Historians (2009). He has coordinated numerous international conferences including the NYU Forum on Theatre and Health (2019, Co-Chair); The NYU Forum on the Teaching Artist (2014, Chair); and the NYU Forum on Citizenship and Applied Theatre (2011, Chair), among others. Dr. Montgomery continues to present papers and facilitate workshops at a variety of conferences around the globe, including delivering a keynote lecture and workshop in Zhuhai, China.
Selected Publications
(in progress) Chinese Translation of Montgomery, D. and R. Landy. Theatre for Change: Education, Social Action and Therapy with a new Forward. Taiwan: Wu-Nan Book Inc. / Shu-Chuan Publishing House, 2026.
Montgomery, D & J Jones. ‘Discoveries Beyond the Lesson Plan’ published in Education in the North Special Issue: Drama Conventions in Educational and Applied Settings. University of Aberdeen, 2024.
Montgomery, D & Grandi, G. ‘The History of New Plays for Young Audiences’ published in The New Plays for Young Audiences Anthology of Plays. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and available as a paperback, 2024.
Montgomery, D, J. DeVivo, T Fisher, & G. Grandi. ‘Trends and Tribulations: Creating Theatre for Young Audiences With or Without Youth’ in Routledge Companion to Theatre and Young People UK: Routledge, 2022.
Montgomery, D. ‘Applied Theatre and Citizenship in the Puerto Rican Community: Artistic Citizenship in Practice,’ book chapter in The Handbook of Artistic Citizenship by D. Elliot, M. Silverman & W. Bowman (editors). London: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Montgomery, D. and R. Landy. Theatre for Change: Education, Social Action and Therapy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Montgomery, D. ‘Taking Ownership in an Arts Partnership: The Experiences of Three Middle School Drama Teachers in a Drama Residency. In Youth Theatre Journal. NY: Routledge, 2010.
Cohen, R & T. Epstein & R. Mattson and D. Turk. Teaching American History: Dialogues Between Historians, Teachers and Students. New York: Routledge. Contributed to two chapters: ‘Personalizing the Lives of Great People in History and Making Historical Documents Come Alive: Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolitionist Movement’ by M. Stoll, D. Montgomery, C Villecio, D. Forquignon & T. Lincoln; ‘Using Process Drama to Teach Gender, Race and Reform in the Progressive Era’ by M. Stoll, D. Montgomery, J. Palella & S. Reiley, 2009.