Katy's Bio

Photo by Clare Kobasa
Katy Rubin is the Founding Artistic Director of Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. She is a Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner, teaching artist, actor and circus performer. She trained with Augusto Boal, the founder of the technique, at the Center for Theatre of the Oppressed—Rio de Janeiro. Katy is also a teaching artist with several NYC arts-education organizations: Urban Arts Partnership, Theatre Development Fund (TDF), Sadie Nash Leadership Project, the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, and Creative Arts Team/CUNY. She teaches Acting, Theatre of the Oppressed, Clean Trash Sculpture, Literacy, and Professional Development for teachers and administrators.
Katy has facilitated and directed Forum Theatre workshops and performances:
Katy is also a Core Artist and actor with the NYC-based ensemble theatre company, The Anthropologists. With The Anthropologists: Another Place (in development), For the Love Of…(Flamboyán Theatre, CSV), Give Us Bread (Milagro Theatre, CSV) and Falling (4th Street Theatre/Flux Theatre Ensemble). Other New York credits include: Lola Got Bite (Gene Frankel Underground), Schadenfreude (WOW Café Theatre), Divine Reality Comedy (Bread and Puppet Theatre),and Sukkos Mob (Great Small Works). Regional credits include: Much Ado About Nothing (Olney Theatre Center), Henry IV, Part 1 (Elm Shakespeare Company), First Blush (Boston Playwrights Theatre), and 365 Days/365 Plays (Long Wharf Theatre). International: Now.Here (NOFIT State Circus, Wales).
Training: BFA, Boston University School of Theatre, Summa Cum Laude; London Academy for Music and Dramatic Arts, England; NOFIT State Circus, Wales; Center for Theatre of the Oppressed, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Katy is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and English, and proficient in Yiddish.
Katy has facilitated and directed Forum Theatre workshops and performances:
- in dozens of NYC public schools
- with the NYC Coalition Against Hunger
- with the VNS/Timebank participants in a bilingual workshop at the Isabella Geriatric Center
- with bilingual community members at the Inwood/Washington Heights YM/YWHA
- with urban young women at the Sadie Nash Leadership Institute
- for clothing designer Eileen Fisher's foundation in Irvington, NY
- at the Riverside Church, NYC
- with the homeless at the Jan Hus Homeless Outreach Program.
- in prisons, mental hospitals, juvenile detention centers, favelas (Brazilian shanty towns), and schools across Brazil
Katy is also a Core Artist and actor with the NYC-based ensemble theatre company, The Anthropologists. With The Anthropologists: Another Place (in development), For the Love Of…(Flamboyán Theatre, CSV), Give Us Bread (Milagro Theatre, CSV) and Falling (4th Street Theatre/Flux Theatre Ensemble). Other New York credits include: Lola Got Bite (Gene Frankel Underground), Schadenfreude (WOW Café Theatre), Divine Reality Comedy (Bread and Puppet Theatre),and Sukkos Mob (Great Small Works). Regional credits include: Much Ado About Nothing (Olney Theatre Center), Henry IV, Part 1 (Elm Shakespeare Company), First Blush (Boston Playwrights Theatre), and 365 Days/365 Plays (Long Wharf Theatre). International: Now.Here (NOFIT State Circus, Wales).
Training: BFA, Boston University School of Theatre, Summa Cum Laude; London Academy for Music and Dramatic Arts, England; NOFIT State Circus, Wales; Center for Theatre of the Oppressed, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Katy is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and English, and proficient in Yiddish.