Photo by Andrew Gonzalez

Photo by Andrew Gonzalez

Joe Salvatore creates live performances and video projects from interview-based data, found media artifacts, and historical events. His most recent project Making Gay History: Before Stonewall, a verbatim documentary theatre adaptation of Eric Marcus’s Making Gay History books and podcast series, premiered at NYU’s Provincetown Playhouse in February 2020 and is now available for licensing.

Joe is the creator and director of the Verbatim Performance Lab, whose performed investigations include Portraits US: COVID-19 and Election 2020, You Can’t Unring the Bell, The Democratic Field (with Artists’ Literacies Institute) The Kavanaugh FilesNo(body) but nobodyThe Grab 'Em TapesThe Moore/Jones ChallengeThe Lauer/Conway Flip, and Of a Certain Age (in collaboration with The Actors Fund).

In 2017, Joe collaborated with economist Maria Guadalupe (INSEAD-France) to create Her Opponent, a verbatim re-staging of excerpts of the 2016 U.S. presidential debates with gender-reversed casting. The Off Broadway production of the project was nominated for an Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best Unique Theatrical Experience and has been covered by NPRThe New York TimesThe GuardianThe Hollywood Reporterout.comFox NewsMSNBC, and ABC News, among others. During the 2020 election cycle, Joe provided commentary for NPR and The New York Times in response to the presidential and vice presidential debates.

Other notable projects include Jenny Macdonald's ENTHRONED (Dublin’s First Fortnight Festival 2016 & 2021, FringeNYC 2016, & Solo SIRENS 2019), ga(y)ze (with Troy Hourie and Caleb Teicher on 14th Street, NYC), open heart (FringeNYC 2010), and fag/hag (with Kate Nugent, FringeNYC 2000). Joe’s play III, about the 15-year menage between George Platt Lynes, Glenway Wescott, and Monroe Wheeler, received the Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Play from FringeNYC 2008 and was subsequently published in Best American Short Plays 2008-2009 (Applause Books).

Joe is a Clinical Associate Professor of Educational Theatre at NYU’s Steinhardt School where he teaches courses in documentary theatre, verbatim performance, new play development, and community-engaged theatre. He has presented about his verbatim documentary theatre and performance practice at SXSW EDU, MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences & Sloan School of Management, Yale University School of Management’s Education Leadership Conference, University of Massachusetts, AERA, ICQI, ISEEN Winter Institute, and at Tallaght Community Arts and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

In 2018, Joe received the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s Johnny Saldaña Outstanding Professor of Theatre Education Award for demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, creative activity, and service. While teaching at NYU, Joe has received the University’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award, NYU Steinhardt’s Teaching Excellence Award, and the NYU LGBTQ Student Center’s Dedication to Education Award.

Member: Dramatists Guild of America, American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE), Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), NYU Steinhardt Theatre and Health Lab, UBC Research-based Theatre Collaborative; Alumnus: Lincoln Center Directors Lab.