Patrick Santoro is a performance educator, director, and scholar/artist who believes in the transformative power of stories to enact change. He is Full Professor and Artistic Director of Theatre and Performance Studies at Governors State University, just outside of Chicago. In 2012, he joined GSU to build a comprehensive new program with a focus on storytelling and social activism, the only one of its kind at an Illinois public university.

Patrick teaches courses in storytelling, directing, performing culture and identity, performance and social change, performance art, writing as performance, and research methods. He received his doctorate in Performance Studies from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and his master’s degree in Communication Studies, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Humanities, from the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Patrick has worked as a director and performer in both educational and professional theatre for the past 30 years. Select directing credits include: Cloud 9, The Laramie Project, A Raisin in the Sun, Fat Pig, for colored girls…, Fahrenheit 451, Our Town, bobrauschenbergamerica, 12 Angry Jurors, a contemporary retelling of Alice in Wonderland from the perspective of the #MeToo movement, and an adaptation of Anne Sexton’s Transformations.

Patrick is the recipient of the 2017 Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award. He has served as chair of the Theatre and Performance Studies Interest Group for Central States Communication Association, and as chair of theatre for the Illinois Communication and Theatre Association.

He currently serves on the editorial board for the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal. Upcoming projects include a chamber opera of The Gift of the Magi (Fall 2024) and Dog Sees God (Spring 2025).