Catherine Hanna Schrock
Applied Theatre Practitioner

BIOGRAPHY

Catherine is an Applied Theater Practitioner, which unites her roles as activist, educator, performer, and writer. She works as both an artist and a facilitator to design creative programming for social engagement, community development, conflict transformation and social justice with an emphasis on performance-based teaching and learning methods in professional, educational, and community settings. 

Catherine is the Co-founder and Director of Imagine (imaginebravespaces.com) inviting communities to imagine and then create new ways of being together.  She devises original works that center social justice, and narratives that create empathy and human connection. Her plays include Shalom Sahbity (with Simnia Singer-Sayada), Second Star to the Right (with Laura Hanna), The City (with Jamie Roach), Safa’s Story, Danny’s Story, and Qulili (with Blake McCarty); as well as numerous devised youth performances through Empowerment Theatre programs with La Jolla Playhouse and Girl Scouts of San Diego. 

Catherine was commissioned by the San Diego County Advisory Council on Human Trafficking Prevention to create a Forum Theatre performance for the kNOw MORE Human Trafficking Prevention curriculum. Since 2017 her Forum Theatre projects have reached over 20,000 people in San Diego County where she is applauded as a “spectacular facilitator who handles children with extreme sensitivity and respect, and engages the audience from the moment they enter the theater” (Times of San Diego, 2020).  Additionally,  she is the Cofounder of Blindspot Collective and she has worked with numerous local and international organizations including the Global Immersion Project in Palestine and Israel; Arts for Life, a girls' empowerment and arts program she founded in Kenya; The Old Globe Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse as a Teaching Artist; and Invisible Children’s Teacher Exchange, a program she developed and directed in Uganda. Catherine has designed creative curriculum for multiple organizations nationwide and is a published poet through Cordella Magazine. 

Catherine holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Theater from New York University and a BA in Sociology and International Development.