J.Ed Araiza
Professor
J.Ed Araiza: professor at UCLA, led an interdisciplinary Graduate Acting program and has served as Chair of the Theater Department. An original member of the SITI Company, the important experimental theater ensemble founded by Tadashi Suzuki and Anne Bogart. J.Ed is a proponent of Suzuki and Viewpoints training and has performed in major international venues including the Kennedy Center; the Olympic Arts Festival; Brooklyn Academy of Music; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center; American Repertory Theater; Edinburgh International Theatre Festival; Bonn Biennale Festival, Germany; Toga International Festival, Japan; Dublin Theatre Festival; and Festival Le Standard Ideal, MC 93 Bobigny, Paris. In Los Angeles, he performed with SITI in Trojan Women, The Persians and The Bacchae, at the Getty Villa. La Victima at the LATC directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela. J.Ed directed The Central Park Five, opera composed by Anthony Davis at the Long Beach Opera. A member of The Dramatist Guild with seven full-length plays produced. Directed Voluspa at the National Theatre of Iceland; Savitri, Dancing in the Forest of Death in India (nominated for best production and best director); MEDEAstories, an adaptation with an international cast in New York, and also a Swedish translation KÄRLEK+SVEK=SANT, TEAK Theater in Helsinki, Finland. Miss Julia, a Bilingual adaptation, based on Strindberg, which has been performed in South America, Europe, LaMAMA ETC in New York, and the previous ENCUENTRO at LATC.
Araiza has been a guest artist and instructor at many universities including The Julliard School, SUNY Purchase, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Columbia University, New York University, National Theater Institute, Harvard University, University of Chicago, Pomona College, Vassar College and the University of Denver. He was a director, artist-in-residence/guest faculty for Four semesters over three years at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Tx and director, artist-in-residence/Coastal Studies Chair at Bowdoin College in Maine. He was also a director, guest lecturer in acting and performance at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. Other international workshops he has led include those at the Singapore International Theatre Festival; South Korea’s Seoul Factory Theatre; the Norwegian Theatre Academy; the Icelandic Academy of the Arts; Festival Iberoamericano in Bogota, Columbia; and several residencies at TEAK the Finnish Theatre Academy, where he also directed his play Medeastories, translated as ”Kärlek + Svek = Sant”
In Fall 2011, before joining UCLA TFT full-time, Araiza served as a guest director in the Department of Theater working with M.F.A. students on a production of The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice.
In Los Angeles, he has performed with the SITI Company in their productions of Trojan Women, The Persians and The Bacchae, all at the Getty Villa. At the LATC he has performed in La Victima at the Los Angeles Theatre Center directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela. In May 2022 he directed The Central Park Five, opera composed by Anthony Davis with libretto by Richard Wesley at the Long Beach Opera.
Most recently J.Ed directed the musical Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 for the UCLA Music Theater program.
