Xan Johnson

Child Drama
Young People's Theatre Directing
Youth Theatre at the U

xan.s.johnson@utah.edu

Xan S. Johnson, Ph.D., is a full professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Utah. Joining the faculty in 1982, Dr. Johnson has served as Department Chair, as Head of Theatre Education, as Artistic Director of the Pioneer Memorial Theatre's Young People's Theatre, and as Head of the Child Drama/Young People's Theatre graduate program, which was rated the top-ranked PHD program in the nation by an SCA survey in 1988.

Dr. Johnson toured his internationally recognized youth theatre program, Theater School for Youth, to dozens of major cities around the USA upon invitation to showcase at RMTA regional and AATE national theatre conferences. In 1990, Theatre School for Youth was invited to represent USA-IATA (International Amateur Theatre Association) in Moscow (then the USSR) where his original script, One Step Short, a musical about illiteracy, which included music composed by young teens, won top performance honors at the festival in competition with nine other international Youth Theatre companies. Most recently, Dr. Johnson co-created, scripted, and directed an original piece entitled Eagle Flight, which was invited to showcase at an International Youth Theatre Festival in France, 2004, and to showcase again later that same summer at the national AATE Conference.

Out of the more than 120 stage productions directed by Dr. Johnson, nearly one-third has been a commitment to new works. Dr. Johnson is also a published playwright, and freelances as a scriptwriter, director, and drama specialist. Dr. Johnson, who also has a background in Drama Therapy and Child Psychology, headed the University of Utah Child Abuse Prevention Program (U-CAPP) "Trust" Touring Company for 12 years, recognized by the Governor of Utah as one of the outstanding Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Programs in the State of Utah ever. For the past ten years, Dr. Johnson has focused on the growing field of brain scan research and its relationship to theatre, child development, and learning theory. Dr. Johnson’s lecturing and keynoting on this focus has taken him around the USA and the world, including the 7th Annual International Youth Talks in Vienna, Austria.

Since 1995, Dr. Johnson has served as Theatre Consultant for the Utah State Office of Education. Since his creation of the program in 1991, Dr. Johnson continues to serve as Founder and Artistic Director of the Zona Gale Youth Theatre in Portage, Wisconsin, which has been invited twice to offer showcase workshop performances at national AATE Conferences. Dr. Johnson has a passion for dance theatre and has collaborated as a playwright with the acclaimed Ririe-Woodbury Modern Dance Company for whom he created the script Circle Cycle, which has bad three national tours. In 2001, Dr. Johnson teamed up with Xtreme Dance, a dance company serving at-risk youth in Salt Lake City, for whom he created the script Breakin' Faustus, which is a collaboration between hip-hop, ballet, and experimental theatre. Dr. Johnson's direction of James Still's Amber Waves for the Grandstreet Theatre's mainstage season in Helena, Montana, was honored as a showcase production at the 2002 RMTA Festivention. Dr. Johnson’s most recent professional directing credits include an Equity production for First Stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he directed the Mid-Western professional premiere of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, January 2005.

In 1990, Dr. Johnson received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, where he completed his undergraduate B.A. in Theatre, Psychology, & Education. He followed this with an M.A. in Modern Theatre and Stage Directing from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Then, he completed an interdepartment Ph.D. in the School of Speech, combining Theatre, Interpretation, and Communication with a study and research focus that included Child Drama, Child Psychology, and Youth Theatre from Northwestern University.