BIO + ARTIST STATEMENT

Justin Cimino is a director, deviser, acting teacher, performer, and nonprofit worker based in Brooklyn, NY.

Recent directing credits include plays by some of the most acclaimed playwrights of the last decade, including Clare Barron, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Aaron Posner, Antoinette Nwandu, and Katori Hall. He has devised/directed productions at The 14th Street Y, Abrons Arts Center, Gibney Dance, Chez Bushwick, The Center at West Park, Mitu580, TheaterLab, and The Tank.

He has devised and directed several productions for his theater company Pigeonholed, of which he is the Founder and Artistic Director.

Justin teaches Acting, Movement, and Devising in the BFA Acting Program and Commercial Dance Programs at Pace University. He teaches Clown and Devising at NYU Tisch, Columbia University, The Studio/NY, The Public’s Shakespeare Initiative, Terry Schreiber Studio, Smashworks Dance Company, and Terry Knickerbocker Studio.

Justin is the former Artistic Director of Zara Aina, a nonprofit organization that brings devised theater and clowning to at-risk youth and adults in Madagascar and the United States. He was hired by UNICEF to use Zara Aina’s theater work to mobilize communities in Madagascar to fight polio. He has also brought Zara Aina’s work to rural Southern Alabama, building several original pageant-style shows with community members ages 4-84. Justin is a recipient of a SUCASA grant from the Queens Council on the Arts, for which he devised an original theater piece with senior citizens.

As an actor, he has performed Off-Broadway and in many other productions in NYC. Justin has workshopped solo work with Austin Pendleton at the Director’s Company.

Justin Cimino received his BFA in Drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, training in the Meisner Technique. He has attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.