Elliot Leffler
Assistant Professor
Telephone number
416-287-7168
Program
Theatre and Performance
Biography
Elliot Leffler is scholar and artist who investigates how Applied Theatre can be used as a catalyst for intercultural dialogue and coalition-building. He has led theatre projects with Jews and Palestinians in Israel, with Kurdish and Arab Iraqis, with white, black and coloured South Africans, and with racially-diverse houses of worship in North America. His book, Applied Theatre and Intercultural Dialogue: Playfully Approaching Difference, examines many of these experiences. His scholarship also includes articles in The Drama Review, Theatre Topics, Research in Drama Education, Theatre Research International, and Contemporary Theatre Review.
Elliot's research and Applied Theatre projects have been supported by a Connaught New Researcher Award, a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, a Dorot Fellowship, a Frank M. Rarig Fellowship, and a University of Minnesota Global Spotlight Grant, among other grants and awards from within the University of Toronto, the University of Minnesota, and Reed College.
Elliot has taught a broad range of classes, including Introduction to Theatre, Theatre and Social Justice, Acting, Directing, Improvisation, Devising Theatre, and Theatre History ("Roots and Traditions"), in addition to teaching within his specialization on Applied Theatre. In productions on college campuses, Elliot has devised and directed plays that have actively engaged audiences in dialogue about 9/11, capitalism, tax policy, and racial and class inequity.
Education
PhD in Theatre, University of Minnesota (2014)
MA in Applied Theatre, University of Cape Town (2008)
BS in Theatre, Summa Cum Laude, Northwestern University (2002)
Affiliations
Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE)
American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR)
Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO)
Teaching Interests
Applied Theatre, Theatre and Social Justice, Devising, Acting, Directing
Research Interests
Applied Theatre, Community-Based Theatre, Intercultural Dialogue, Play, Oberammergau Passion Play
Awards and Grants
SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (2022-24, with the "Flourish" collective)
IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, & Sustainability) Grant, 2022
Connaught New Researcher Award (2021)
UTSC Experiential Education Grant (2019, 2021)
Equity and Diversity in the Arts Grant (2019, 2021)
Dorot Fellowship (2009-2010)
Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship (2007-2008)
Publications
Book
Leffler, Elliot. 2022. Applied Theatre and Intercultural Dialogue: Playfully Approaching Difference. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
ISBN: 978-3-030-98514-1
Article
Leffler, Elliot. "Performing Protest and Protesting Performance: The International Circuits of Touring Political Theatre." Theatre Research International 46.1 (2021): 53-69.
Leffler, Elliot. "Performing Protest and Protesting Performance: The International Circuits of Touring Political Theatre." Theatre Research International 46.1 (2021): 53-69.
Book Chapter
Leffler, Elliot. "Bursting the Bubble of Play: Making Space for Intercultural Dialogue." In Megan Lewis and Anton Kruger, eds, Magnet Theatre: Three Decades of Making Space. Intellect Books, 2016.
ISBN 9781783205370
Performances
 PARIS COMMUNE By Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman |
IN/DIVISIBLE Devised by The Cast |
TEA PARTY: AN INTERACTIVE PERFORMANCE FOR THE ELECTION YEAR Devised by The Cast |
REMEMBERING 9/11: A PERFORMANCE AND COMMUNITY DIALOGUE Devised by The Cast |
Projects
Playful Encounters
A long-term, multi-sited, ethnographic project investigating Applied Theatre projects that foster intercultural encounters.
- My book, , weaves together the project鈥檚 overarching insights from across multiple sites.
- Several articles and essays related to this project鈥檚 sites include 鈥溾, 鈥", 鈥溾, and 鈥溾.
Impassioned Public: A Study of the Oberammergau Passion Play.
An ethnographic study of the amateur artists who create the world鈥檚 most famous passion play.
- This project has received support from the 2020 Jackman Humanities Institute鈥檚 Scholars-in- Residence program, a Connaught New Researcher Award, an RCPP grant, and and IDEAS grant.
- I taught a Summer 2022 course in relation to this project, with support from the UTSC Dean鈥檚 Office and Experiential Learning Fund, that engaged a group of 11 UTSC undergraduate students, taking them to Oberammergau, Germany, to witness the Passion Play and conduct interviews.
- This project has engaged two undergraduate research assistants through the University of Toronto鈥檚 work study program, and one graduate research assistant, with support of the 鈥淔lourish鈥 research cluster.
Professional Practice
 THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED From 2015-2018, I was an Artistic Associate at , a non-profit organization in Portland, OR that uses 鈥淭heatre of the Oppressed鈥 methodologies to advocate for greater racial and economic justice. I worked with Living Stages to develop interactive theatre events and facilitate those events. |
 PLAYBACK THEATRE From 2015-2018, I was an ensemble member of 鈥 a Portland-based company practicing an interactive, improvisational form of performance called Playback Theatre. With its roots in drama therapy, Playback Theatre companies solicit real stories from their audiences, and dramatize those stories in ways that stimulate audiences to look at those experiences anew. |
 BIBLIODRAMAIn 2012-2013, I worked with a black Baptist church and a Reform synagogue to co-faciliitate a theatre program in which congregants studied Biblical narratives together by dramatizing them. Using a methodology called Bibliodrama, my co-facilitator Brian Smith and I catalyzed a year-long, interracial and interfaith conversation about partnerships based in Biblical narratives and unlikely relationship-building. For more information on this project, please see my or my 2016 . |
 GLOBAL YOUTH VILLAGE In Summers 2011 and 2012, I ran drama workshops at 鈥 a summer camp for teenagers who come from all over the world to practice intercultural dialogue and study peacebuilding. My workshops used methodologies associated with Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed to open up a space in which personal stories could be shared in a fully-embodied way, promoting intercultural understanding. I have published an based on some of my experiences at GYV, and I will be writing more about these experiences in my . |
 POLLSMOOR PRISON In 2007, I ran an intercultural theatre program with juvenile inmates of Pollsmoor Prison, in Cape Town, South Africa. I worked with them to create original pieces of theatre about schools, gangs, crime, and HIV. I have written about this process in my , and I will be writing more about it in my . |