Short Bio

Coya Paz is a writer, director, and lip gloss connoisseur who was raised in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and the United States. She is the Artistic Director of Free Street Theater, which has been using performance to challenge Chicago racial and economic segregation since 1969, and served as the founding co-Artistic Director of Teatro Luna for nine years. Coya is an Associate Professor in The Theatre School at DePaul University and holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, where she researched public violence as performance. She is the co-author (with Chloe Johnston) of Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater. Above all, she believes in the power of poetry and performance to build community towards social change. Visit her on the web at coyapaz.com

Long Bio

Coya Paz is is a writer, director, and lip gloss connoisseur who was raised in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and the United States. She is the Artistic Director of Free Street Theater, which has been using performance to challenge Chicago’s racial and economic segregation since 1969, and served as the founding co-Artistic Director of Teatro Luna for nine years. As a theater-maker, Coya specializes in co-created and devised performance, and is primarily interested in finding measurable ways to use performance to support community-led social justice efforts. Recent projects include a journalism collaboration with ProPublica Illinois, and Still/Here: A Manifesto for Survival, an epic performance which toured to all 50 wards of Chicago to mark Free Street Theater’s 50th year of performing in public spaces. She is currently working on a Cultural Asset Mapping project in collaboration with Free Street, DCASE, and the League of Chicago Theaters.

Coya is an Associate Professor in The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she is the Chair of the Theatre Studies department, and she holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. She is the co-author, with Chloe Johnston, of Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater, and her writing is featured in the following anthologies: Blacktino Queer Performance, Windy City Queer, Rebeldes: A Proyecto Latina Anthology, and Sexualities in Education: A Reader. Coya has been a featured reader at dozens of literary events including: Proyecto Latina, Paper Machete, Palabra Pura, and 2nd Story. Above all, she believes in the power of performance and poetry to build community towards social change.