Joe Salvatore

Joe Salvatore

New York University, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

Teacher of Educational Theatre

Phone: 212-998-5266
Email: js1655@nyu.edu

• Music and Performing Arts Professions
• Educational Theatre

Joe Salvatore is a director/playwright/dramaturg based in Manhattan. He is on the faculty of the Program in Educational Theatre at New York University where he teaches courses in acting, directing, Shakespeare, applied theatre, new play development, and theatre pedagogy. Since August 2005, Joe has also served as a Faculty Fellow in Residence in the Third Avenue North residence hall.

Prior to coming to NYU, Joe worked as the Education and Humanities Manager at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Joe has also taught at Barnard College, Long Island University-Brooklyn campus, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has been a guest artist/lecturer at Brooklyn College, Washington University, ACTeen, Dublin Youth Theatre, and the Educational Theatre Association. He has also facilitated professional development workshops on teaching Shakespeare and arts curriculum development for teachers and school administrators throughout New York City.

Joe serves as the Artistic / Education Director for Learning Stages , an award-winning, non-profit theater company in southern New Jersey, dedicated to providing artistic opportunities for children and young adults. Joe co-founded this organization, formerly known as the Gloucester County Summer Drama Workshop, in 1991, and served as its artistic director from 1995 through 1998, creating and directing seven productions, including the original group piece, Dashboard Photographs. Joe has also worked as a consultant for Dance Theater Workshop, youngARTS/New York, and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Joe's past directing projects for NYU include The Class Project, Polaroid Stories, The Tempest, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, and 5 X Wilder: Plays from the Seven Deadly Sins Cycle by Thornton Wilder at the historic Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village. This project included the New York premiere of Wilder's play In Shakespeare and the Bible. In February 2005, Joe collaborated with Julie Marie Myatt on transfigured at NYU. The piece examined an incident that occurred in western Massachusetts in May 1999 when two male students at a prestigious prep school carved the word "HOMO" into another student's back for listening to the rock band Queen. This project expanded to include interactive drama workshops that explored bullying, hazing, and homophobia. transfigured was presented and discussed at conferences throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom.  Additional writing and directing credits can be viewed by clicking here.

Joe was a featured speaker at the Theatre Communications Group National Conference in June 2009.  He has also presented papers and workshops at UNESCO's World Conference on Arts Education (2006), the American Educational Research Association Conference (2004, 2005, 2007), the New York State Theatre Education Association Student Conference (2004, 2006), the University of Delaware's Undergraduate Research Symposium (2004 keynote address), the British Forum on Ethnomusicology Annual Conference (2006), the ATHE/AATE Joint Conference (2003), the AATE Conference (2006), the Missouri State Thespian Festival (2005), the International Thespian Festival (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008), the NEACUHO Conference (2006, 2008), and NYC's Arts in Education Roundtable Face to Face Conference (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006). Joe also chaired the 2008 NYU Program in Educational Theatre Forum, "Shakespeare: Page, Stage, Engage." 

Joe's writing has appeared in Academic Exchange Quarterly, American Theatre, Dramatics, and Teaching Theatre, and in the book The Color of Theatre: Race, Culture, and Contemporary Performance (Continuum Press, 2002).  His chapter on teaching Shakespeare will appear in The Routledge International Handbook of English, Language, and Literacy Education (2010), and a chapter on self-assessment in theatre education will appear in Teacher Educators Rethink Self-Assessment in Higher Education: A Guide for the Perplexed (Peter Lang, 2010).

Joe holds an MFA in Theater (Dramaturgy/Directing) from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an Honors BA in History from the University of Delaware. He is also a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, the Educational Theatre Association, the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, and the American Educational Research Association.