The Performing Justice Project was originally created by Megan Alrutz, Lynn Hoare and Kristen Hogan. Megan and Lynn direct, devise and facilitate original performance work with young people in various contexts through PJP. As PJP Co-Directors, Megan and Lynn also supervise graduate students and community-based artists in residency with young people.
Dr. Megan Alrutz
Megan Alrutz is an artist-scholar who is interested in all aspects of performance with and for young people. Her scholarship focuses on applied theatre and digital storytelling, as well arts and media integration, directing and dramaturgy–all through a social justice lens. Megan leads the MFA program in Drama & Theatre for Youth & Communities at UT Austin and is the co-founder and co-director of the Performing Justice Project (PJP), a community-based performance program that addresses gender and racial justice with youth. Megan creates performance work in a variety of spaces, including juvenile justice settings, schools, professional theatre spaces, and other places that engage young people. Her published research can be found in RiDE, Youth Theatre Journal, Teaching Artist Journal, Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, and TYA Today. Megan is also co-editor of Playing with Theory in Theatre Practice (Palgrave Macmillan 2011) and author of Digital Storytelling, Applied Theatre, & Youth: Performing Possibility (Routledge 2015).
Lynn Hoare
Lynn Hoare specializes in Applied Theatre, theatre in education, and devising interactive theatre. She is the Senior Director of School-Based Programs at Creative Action, a creative youth development organization in Austin, Texas where she uses theatre to raise awareness, spark conversation and activate young people around issues relevant to their lives. Lynn is also co-director and co-founder of the Performing Justice Project which uses devised performance to explore gender and racial justice with youth. Lynn collaborates with a variety of community agencies and universities on projects that use theatre as a tool for engagement, dialogue and community building. Her article, “Challenging Facilitation: Training Facilitators for Theatre for Dialogue Programmes” is included in the third edition of Learning Through Theatre, Jackson and Vine.
Dr. Kristen Hogan
Kristen Hogan is English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies Librarian at the UT Libraries. She co-creates, curates, and teaches critical research skills with tools including the Black Queer Studies Collection, a social justice new arrivals list, and the UT Poetry Center committed to building dialogues with poets of color and LGBTQ poets. She has taught Women’s and Gender Studies in Louisiana and Texas. Her book, forthcoming from Duke University Press, is Accountable to Each Other: Lesbian, Antiracist, and Literary Activism of the Feminist Bookstore Movement, 1970-2007.