Dana Edell

Dana Edell (she/her) is an activist-scholar-artist-educator. She has produced and co-directed 80+ original plays and 7 albums of music written and performed by teenage girls and nonbinary youth addressing social justice issues and has worked as a theater teaching artist with people of all ages in public and private elementary, middle and high schools, adult prisons and youth correctional institutions in Rhode Island, California, Delaware and New York. She’s the co-director of SPARK Movement, an intergenerational, antiracist, arts-driven girls’ activist organization where she has trained and supported girls (ages 13-22) to design and run arts-based activist campaigns and take action in their communities. She consults with organizations and schools throughout the United States and abroad about gender justice, civic engagement, youth activism, feminist Jewish education and arts integration. Dana was co-chair of the Girls’ Participation Task Force at the United Nations where she directed annual theater productions written by girls from 20+ countries. Through her writing, presentations and media appearances, she advocates for the need for collaborative and activist performing arts experiences for girl-identified and gender expansive young people. She has published chapters and articles in more than a dozen academic books and journals, and her first book, Girls, Performance and Activism: Demanding to Be Heard was published by Routledge in 2022. She is the Co-Editor of Youth Theatre Journal. She has a BA in Ancient Greek from Brown University, an MFA in theatre directing from Columbia University and a PhD in theatre and education from NYU. At Emerson, she teaches Applied Theatre and Theatre Education.