Jay Edelnant

Jay Edelnant
KC/ACTF Liaison to ATHE
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Jay Edelnant is Professor of Theatre at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. He teaches courses in theatre research, directing, and dramatic theory, directs and writes plays, and has served as Department Head, Director of Theatre, and Director of Graduate Studies. He has served as a consultant for various state, national, and international educational and arts agencies, has been a Sasakawa Fellow at the Japan Studies Institute, a Roy Carver Fellow, and has received the Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence.

His most recent production work includes, Wonder of the World, The Exonerated, Sueño, and Sh*tfaced: A Binge Drinking Revue, and guest artist residencies in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Nebraska. His published research on Vladimir Nabokov was used as the basis for a new production for Italy’s Ravenna and Santarcangelo Festivals and he delivered the keynote lecture in Ravenna. He serves as a consultant and evaluator for other universities, to the Iowa Arts Council, the Iowa Humanities Board, the Iowa Department of Education and has worked as a consultant to the Teatr Wybrzeze and University of Gdansk, Poland, and the Ostrovsky Theatrical and Art Institute of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he worked with the Union of Theatrical Artists and the Performing Arts Training School. He was one of the founding editors and served as Consulting Editor to the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's national professional journal Theatre Topics.

He has recently completed his term as the National Chair of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Edelnant is a graduate of MacMurray College and Northwestern University.