Theater & Music Theater Guest Artists

Joanna Evans

Joanna Evans headshot

About

Joanna Evans is a South African theater artist, playwright and performance scholar based in New York. Both her scholarly research and creative work explore improvised and ensemble performance practices, material animacy, queer intimacy, decolonial forms, communal knowledge, and historical memory. Her plays have toured throughout South Africa, as well as to international festivals in Italy, Germany, Iran, Hungary, Réunion and the United States. These include Four Small Gods (Imbewu Trust Scribe Award), Patchwork (Best International Performance, Hamedan Arts Festival), and The Year of the Bicycle (Silver Ovation Award Winner, South African National Arts Festival; published by Junkets Press). Joanna is a co-founder of Pillow Fort Theater, one of South Africa’s first Theater for Early Years companies, which conducts experimental research into performance for pre-verbal audiences. Her article "Unsettled Matters, Falling Flight" was winner of the 2017 TDR: The Drama Review Student Essay Contest and was published in the journal’s Fall 2018 issue. Joanna holds a BA in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town, and an MA in Performance Studies from New York University, where she is currently working towards her doctorate.

joannaruth.com