James Slowiak

Background

About James Slowiak

James Slowiak (co-artistic director) is currently Professor of Theatre at The University of Akron in Ohio and Co-Artistic Director of New World Performance Laboratory (NWPL). He received the Outstanding Teacher Award in 2006 and a Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement in From 1983 to 1989, Mr. Slowiak served as Assistant to Jerzy Grotowski in all facets of the Focused Research Program in Objective Drama at the University of California-Irvine and at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski in Pontedera, Italy. Mr. Slowiak's work in collaboration with Grotowski is the subject of an article in the spring 1991 issue of The Drama Review and is discussed in the book At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions by Thomas Richards (Routledge, 1995). Mr. Slowiak received his MFA in Directing from the University of California-Irvine and a BA in Anthropology, French, and Dramatic Arts from Macalester College. He co-founded and was Artistic Director of At Random Theatre Ensemble in St. Paul, Minnesota (1978-1982). He has directed more than seventy theatre events, including his own adaptations of Moliere’s El Misantropo and Cervantes’ Entremeses in Bogota, Colombia, and he has conducted numerous workshops in Performance Ecology and Creative Training Techniques in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. For NWPL, Mr. Slowiak has directed The Ancients; Mother's Work; Epiphany; Veredas; The Book of Saints and Martyrs; Essential Demonstrations; Woyzeck (Fragments of a Morality Play as Performed by the Prodigies of Dr. Somnus' Freak Show); HamletMachine; Electra; Love in the Time of Lunatics; Winesburg, Ohio; Deathwatch, Frankenstein and others. He is co-author (with Jairo Cuesta) of Jerzy Grotowski (Routledge, 2007). Specialties: Stage Director; Teacher of acting, directing, voice, movement, and contemporary theatre; Expert in the work of Jerzy Grotowski.