Michael Gargan Curtin is a theater director, popular educator, and community organizer in Brooklyn, NY. A native to the borough, Michael is passionate about working with his own communities. He has worked in schools, youth centers, jails, and community organizations. He sees the arts as key to reshaping the world and has witnessed its potential to resist oppression. Here are some of his past and current projects:

The Queer Youth Theater

Michael Co-leads an after school theater program for LGBTQ youth at The Door in Manhattan. He and Joey Schultz founded the program in December of 2011. The group has seen over 80 members, performed at Share! at The University Sttlement, and draws young people from all around the city.

Teatro Comunitario de Bensonhurst

Michael co-directs an inter-generational theater project with Latino youth and parents in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The project partners with La Unión on a community theater and dialogue project. The project aims to create conversation across generations, and to further develop a vision for the Latino community in the US. He facilitates with Oscar Trujillo.

Capacity Arts

A Collaborating Artist with the fledglight Theater-in-Education company, Michael has been an ensemble creator on Liberty and Justice for All, which explores the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and Lumumba, which takes a critical look at neocolonialsm and the political crisis in the Congo in the 1960's.

Project Rwanda

In 2011 and 2012, Michael traveled to Kigali, Rwanda with the Applied Theatre program at CUNY. There, he led professional development trainings with education students, and was part of a team that helped to spark and enhance some of the first dra