Sabrina Speranza Signorelli

Since 2005, I’ve been working as an actress, director, and researcher at the intersection of theatre and politics. Currently I am directing a devised biographical theatre project with young people in prison and with young actors, all of whom are collaborating on the collective creation process.

I have also worked as a secondary school literature teacher in communities affected by social harm. For more than fifteen years, I have been a popular educator and theatre teacher with children and teenagers in contexts of social vulnerability. Such work led me to understand the necessity of a gender studies approach as well as the prevention of drug use, I subsequently earned a diploma in Drug Use Prevention and a post-baccalaureate diploma in Gender Policy. 

I have served on the board of the office of the National Drug Secretary, leading the area on community and family prevention, and I am a member of the Drugs Policy program at the Centro de Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay, a non-governmental organization. 

Currently, I am a professor at the Multidisciplinary School of Dramatic Art, where I am responsible for the area/focus on Drama History and Analysis, the course on Theatre Practices in Prison, and the school’s Gender Commission. 

I am interested in research and liminal practice at the intersection of (and between) theatre and politics, especially–but not only–in relation to Theatre of the Oppressed as a methodology. One of my main areas of interest relates to prisons and the achievements of theatre with people who are imprisoned. 

I am now conducting research about the oldest branch of Theatre of the Oppressed–Newspaper Theatre–and its use in the current political conjuncture. 

In addition, I am interested in feminism and how feminist movements perform their actions. 

As a result of my study and work in the drug policy field, I am also keen to continue my research about the contributions of arts to harm reduction associated with drug use.