Anita Gonzalez (Director) directs, devises and writes theatrical works, most recently she directed Guess Who's Coming to Dinner here at Riverside. Her innovative stagings of cross-cultural experiences have appeared on PBS national television and at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, The Working Theatre, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, New York Live Arts, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and other national and international venues. Gonzalez believes the art of storytelling connects people to their cultures. Over 40,000 students have taken her massive open online courses Storytelling for Social Change and Black Performance as Social Protest. 

 Gonzalez is currently a Professor at Georgetown University and  a Co-Founder of the Racial Justice Institute. She is Artistic Director of the Woodshed Collective, a multi-generational group of creatives who gather to develop new performance research methodologies for storytelling and experiment together with interdisciplinary creative forms. 

 In addition to membership at the Dramatists Guild, Stage Directors and Choreographers, the National Theatre Conference, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, Gonzalez sits on the Board of Directors of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Her authored works are listed below.

Musicals: Kumanana (Gala Hispanic Theater), Ybor City (Brooklyn Tavern Theater), Zora on My Mind (The Woodshed), Ayanna Kelly. Plays & Librettos: Faces in the Flames (Atlanta Opera) Courthouse Bells (Boston Opera Collaborative), Finding the Light (Louise Toppin and Opera Ebony), Sunset Dreams (The Vagrancy), Home of My Ancestors (HGOCo). Books: Performance, Dance and Political Economy, Black Performance Theory, Afro-Mexico. Gonzalez is a Professor at Georgetown University and a member of the Dramatists Guild. For further information see www.anitagonzalez.com