Alex Torra
Assistant Professor
Theater
Contact
Affiliations: Department of Theater
Alex Torra is a Philadelphia-based Cuban American director, producer, educator, and performer whose work centers on experimental, ensemble-devised performance and socially engaged theater. He is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Team Sunshine Performance, a Philadelphia-based company that creates ambitious, ensemble-devised works rooted in lived experience, long-term collaboration, and civic inquiry. Over the company’s 15-year history, Torra has directed and co-created most of its major works, which have ranged from intimate autobiographical performance to large-scale participatory projects that invite audiences and communities into the process of making meaning together. His recent work with Team Sunshine includes The Great American Gunshow, an ongoing performance and civic-engagement project examining Americans’ relationships to guns through interviews and community-based research, and The Sincerity Project, a 24-year performance experiment following an ensemble of artists as they age together.
Torra’s artistic practice also includes long-term collaborations with poet Denice Frohman and choreographer and facilitator Shavon Norris, as well as recent directing collaborations with singer and composer Emily Bate and transqueer clown and cardboard constructionist Eli Nixon. He is an Associate Artist and former Associate Artistic Director of the two-time Obie Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company.
In 2018, Torra received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and has received fellowships and support from the Independence Foundation, the Princess Grace Foundation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Drama League, and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, among others.
Torra is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College, where he teaches courses in acting, directing, devised performance, solo performance, and Latinx performance. He has also served as an advisor for Senior Honors projects in Directing, Community Engagement, and Playwriting.
Torra received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium.
Courses
Acting I and II; Directing I and II; Theater from Scratch: An Introduction to Devised Performance; Solo Performance; Senior Company; and Performing Latinidad: Latinx Theater, Film, and Performance Art.
Productions Directed at Swarthmore
American Buffalo; Mad Forest; Dublin by Lamplight; As You Like It; Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; The Caucasian Chalk Circle; The (24-Hour) Bald Soprano; Scenes from The Suppliant Women; GLARE, devised with students; and The Wolves.
Alex Torra is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater where he teaches Acting 1, Acting 2, Solo Performance, Acting Capstone, Production Ensemble, and a course in Latinx Performance called “Performance Latinidad: Latinx Theater, Film, and Performance Art”. Over the last few years, he has directed multiple productions at Swarthmore including The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The (24 Hour) Bald Soprano, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again., As You Like It, Dublin by Lamplight, and Mad Forest.
A Philadelphia-based, Cuban-American director, actor and producer, Torra’s primary focus as a professional theater artist is the creation and presentation of experimental, ensemble-devised performance works. He is the Co-Founder of Team Sunshine Performance Corporation, where he has directed all of the company’s major works since it’s founding in 2010. He is also an Associate Artist and former Associate Artistic Director of two-time Obie Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company. In 2018, Torra received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and is a past recipient of fellowships from the Independence Foundation, the Princess Grace Foundation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Drama League, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, among others. He received his B.A. University of Pennsylvania; and his M.F.A. in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium.
