David Montgomery

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, teacher training and integrated arts. 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 graduate students from NYU to shape an original production of Shakespeare. Other directorial credits include: 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 (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 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 (2006, NYU) and Folktale Journey: Old Stories Told in New Ways (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 director of the Drama Therapy Program at NYU, entitled Theatre for Change: Education, Social Action, Therapy (Palgrave Macmillan). He contributed a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Young People (2022) called 'Trials and Tribulations: Creating Theatre for Young Audiences With and Without Youth,' co-written by  Gina Grandi, Teresa Fisher and Jim DeVivo. He wrote a chapter for The Handbook of Artistic Citizenship entitled ‘Applied Theatre and Citizenship in the Puerto Rican Community: Artistic Citizenship in Practice,” published by Oxford University Press (2016). He has written journal articles and collaborated on two chapters in Teaching US History: Dialogues Among Social Studies Teachers and Historians,published by Routledge (2009). He 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). 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.