Coya Paz

Coya Paz is a theatre maker, scholar, and arts administrator with a deep commitment to racial and economic equity in the arts. She specializes in co-created performance and applied theater and is the Strategic Director of the historic Free Street Theater in Chicago, whose mission is to create original performance in partnership with divested communities in Chicago. Coya is the author of Decentering Theater Histories Part 2: Marlowe to Minstrelsy (1500-1890) and the co-author, with Chloe Johnston, of Ensemble-Made Performance: A Guide to Devised Theater. She is a Professor in The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she also serves as Associate Dean. Coya holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, where her graduate research focused on intersections between public violence and performance, and she is particularly interested in ghost stories as cultural archives. Coya also researches economic disparity and the arts in Chicago and is an advocate for neighborhood-based arts, particularly on the South and West sides of the city. She serves on a wide variety of advisory and advocacy boards focused on racial and geographic equity, including the Board of Commissioners for the Chicago Park District, and does organizational consulting via Free Street Talks. Above all, Coya believes in the power of performance and poetry to build community toward social change.