Photo Credit: Xiyal
Marina Johnson is a PhD candidate in TAPS at Stanford University (MFA in Directing, University of Iowa). Her dissertation research concerns Palestinian performance from 2015 to the present. 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.
Johnson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Theatre/Practice, Arab Stages, Decolonizing Dramaturgy in a Global Context (Bloomsbury), 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.
Select recent directing credits include: The Shroud Maker (International Voices Project), Shakespeare’s Sisters (Stanford), The Palestinian Youth Monologues (Stanford), Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche (Beloit College), and In the Next Room (Beloit College).
Additionally, she was one of the dramaturgs and literary managers for the 2023 ReOrient Festival at Golden Thread Productions, dramaturg for Julius Caesar (Stanford, 2022), assistant director and dramaturg for As Soon As Impossible (Stanford, 2021), dramaturg for Two Rooms (Penn State, 2021), and dramaturg and assistant director for Twice, Thrice, Frice (Silk Road Rising, 2019). Her work has been published in MATC’s Theatre/Practice, Eumenica, and in Arab Stages.