JOE MARTIN  Author & Director
Playwright, novelist and theatre director, Joe Martin's
works comprise an international and experimental
exploration into the border regions between the spiritual
cosmos and the cultural-political world.

He is the recipient of various grants and awards as a
writer and director, including a Fulbright Senior
Fellowship in Theatre, and grants from the Rockefeller
Foundation, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, among
others.  In 2002 Martin was selected to serve on the roster
of Senior Fulbright Senior Specialists, as a theatre artist
in Eastern Europe. He was reappointed in 2011, for work
in the Middle East.

Also active as a translator of drama from Swedish,
Norwegian and Spanish, he has translated many works of
August Strindberg, as well as Jens Bjorneboe, and Juan
Tovar.

A director and dramaturg of over fifty stage productions
in the US, Canada and Europe, his recent productions
include Darios Fo's They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay
(Washington DC, 2016), Fugard's Boesman and Lena
(Bethlehem, 2014) and Soundwaves (NYC, an original
play2014). Past productions have included both originals
and classic works: The Ghost Sonata (Washington
1988), Parabola: Tales of the Wise and the Idiots
(Washington, 1990), Anatole's Lover (Washington 1991),
Woyzeck (1993), The Match Girl's SNOW QUEEN
(Washington 1995), Three Plays by Brecht: The
Wedding/The Chalk Cross/The Beggar (with Zeljko
Djukic, 1997), Rumi's MATHNAVI (Washington and New
York, 1998-2001), and Jose Rivera's Marisol (Bucharest,
2002).

A senior lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts and
Studies, Johns Hopkins University; and Creative Writing
at George Washington University, he has also served as
Fellow in the Arts and Peace at the Center for Global
Peace, Washington DC.
THEATRE PRODUCTIONS (director)
__________________________________
Above: Boesman and Lena by Athol Fugard.  Diyar
Theatre, Bethlehem 2014.
REVIEWS
Web design by Noel Brodsky
On FOREIGNERS:

"[An] absurdist mind grenade for the 90s ... Joe Martin's first
novel paints this neo-European shadow landscape with
panache.  The biggest surprise, however, may be learning that
this modern day Tower of Babel was concocted by a gifted
American writer."

                                Richard Peabody, Editor, GARGOYLE

On CONSPIRACIES: SIX  PLAYS

"[A] splendid introduction to one of the most exciting
playwrights in the country."
                               DRAMALOGUE, Hollywood, CA

On PARABOLA

"... through the tightly structured geometry of this
metaphorically rich [work comes] a recognition of the search
we undertake to fix a place for ourselves ... and try to make
sense of a confusing, alienating and often combative world."
                               HIGH PERFORMANCE

On STRINDBERG--OTHER SIDES

"Martin is not far behind [Strindberg] in versatility.  Martin's
experience as a scholar, playwright, novelist, poet, essayist,
theatre director and producer are a perfect fit, as he presents
"other sides" of Strindberg to a North American public."

                    Bjorn Meidal, THE STRINDBERG SOCIETY
Rumi's MATHNAVI : A Theatre Adaptation
SPIRIT GARDEN Poems
with art by Enrique Castanon
"In Spirit Garden, poet-scholar-playwright Joe Martin sings ecstatically of the
One, the hidden integrity of opposites & the living mystery of existence. He not
only fuses Sufi, Buddhist & Jewish paths in a troubadour's transcendence both
timeless & time-bound, his thirty poems share the page with Enrique
Castanon's haunting figures which shift foreground and background to
meta-illustrate the gestalt of Martin's vision"

                          --Kirpal Gordon, author, Author, Eros in Sanskrit
Foreigners: A Novel
STAGING ATHOL
FUGARD IN
PALESTINE
And other essays
on theatre and
writers in the Holy
Land

Release date
January 20 2018.
Essays available on Academia.edu.

Fugard in Palestine
Ibn al-Arabi
Peter Brook
Ibsen and Emergence
Sufism, Shamanism and Music
Angels in America