Photo Credit: Xiyal
Marina Johnson is a PhD candidate in TAPS at Stanford University (MFA in Directing, University of Iowa). Marina Johnson is a PhD Candidate at Stanford University whose research focuses on Palestinian performance in the last decade. Johnson has PhD minors in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. She is a 2025-2026 Stanford Humanities Center Fellow, was a 2021-2022 Graduate Public Service Fellow with the Stanford Haas Center, and the 2022-2023 co-artistic director of the Nitery Experimental Theatre. Johnson is the co-host of Kunafa and Shay, a MENA theatre podcast produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons, and they are also a member of Silk Road Rising’s Polycultural Institute.
Marina recently co-directed Al Manshiyya (Palestinan National Theatre El Hakawati), Al Akhbar M3 Manar, Nazira, and Qirshekl Abyad (Al Harah Theatre), and gave workshops at ASHTAR Theatre. At Stanford, she directed the TAPS Winter 2024 mainstage The Wolves. She regularly works on community-engaged theatre projects in the Bay Area. Johnson has worked as a dramaturg with Golden Thread Productions, Silk Road Rising, Penn State University, and on several Stanford mainstage productions. Select additional directing credits include: The Shroud Maker (International Voices Project), Shakespeare’s Sisters (Stanford), and The Palestinian Youth Monologues (Stanford).
Johnson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Jerusalem Quarterly, Theatre/Practice, TDR, Theatre Topics, Arab Stages, Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders and Sexualities (Routledge), and Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance, Volume I: Performers (Bloomsbury). Prior to her PhD, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Beloit College for three years.