Jack Canfora, Award-Winning Playwright and Artistic Director, New Normal Rep

Join our conversation on how live theater can be “modernized” and used to challenge the negative contemporary cultural side effects like extremism and alienation with Award-Winning Playwright, Jack Canfora. 

For centuries people have found inspiration, beauty, and expression in live theater. The Ancient Greeks were the first to wade into the waters of this novel art form, using dance, song, and choral chants to play out their mythic past. 

Today, many see live theater as a dying art as multimedia storytelling modalities, like streaming TV, film, and the internet, hold a monopoly on our attention. In the face of this threatening final nail in the coffin, Jack is dedicated to presenting both new and underproduced plays via the internet, in ways that maintain the essential dramatic spirit while using the theatrical experience to explore the historical, cultural, and psychological forces shaping life in America and beyond in the 21st Century. 

He shares on Unlocking Your World of Creativity how to reshape our storytelling imagination to better understand the beauty and potential this ancient art form still holds. 

Topics Jack Discusses:

1. Re-Lighting The Storytelling Campfire: Why Sharing Stories Is The Glue That Holds Cultures & Communities Together 
2. Live Theater Is NOT Dead (It Just Needs Some Reimagining): How To Make Theater More Available, Affordable, & Widely Attended 
3. “Democratizing” The Theatrical Experience: Bringing Theater Home To Underprivileged, Underserved, & Ignored Audiences 
4. How This Ancient Art Form Can Evolve To Keep Up With The Era Of Netflix & Chill
5. Breaking Down The Barriers That Are Preventing Underproduced, Lesser Known Playwrights From Making On-Stage
6. Using The Theatrical Experience To Change The Culture Of Modern Alienation To One Of Belonging, Empathy & Human Connection

More About Jack:

John Lawrence "Jack" Canfora is an Award-Winning American playwright, actor, musician, and teacher. After receiving his dramatic training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he began his career as an actor in regional theater, working mostly in Shakespearean roles such as Mercutio and Macbeth. He’s been hailed by the Associated Press as “White-hot Entertainment” for his off-Broadway plays including Poetic License, Place Setting, and Jericho, a New York Times “Critics Pick.” He was nominated along with Edward Albee, Elaine May, and Teresa Rebeck for The Newark Star Ledger’s Best Play, 2007. Jack is the recipient of two Edgerton Playwriting Awards, for Jericho (2010) and The Source (2018). He won the 2016 Webby Award for Best Writing in a Web Series. Jack is also the Artistic Director of New Normal Rep.

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