Elliot Leffler

Elliot Leffler is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Toronto – Scarborough. As an artist and a scholar, Elliot explores how theatre can be used as a catalyst for intercultural, interfaith, and intergenerational dialogue. He has led theatre projects with white, Black, and Coloured South Africans, with Jews and Palestinians in Israel, with Kurdish and Arab Iraqis, with urban US high school students, and with racially-diverse houses of worship. These creative and scholarly projects frequently take Elliot away from traditional theatre spaces: he has worked in summer camps, prisons, rural villages, church basements, and urban high schools. Currently, Elliot is researching the diverse community of artistry that produces the Oberammergau Passion Play, in Oberammergau, Germany. Elliot holds a PhD in Theatre from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Cape Town, and a BS in Theatre from Northwestern University. Elliot is the author of Applied Theatre and Intercultural Dialogue: Playfully Approaching Difference , and has also published in The Drama Review, Research in Drama Education, Theatre Research International, Theatre Topics, and Contemporary Theatre Review.