Essays and Chapters in Books

Jan is available for writing commissions. Some of her past work includes:

Websites and Journals 

Cocreation

Jan has co-researched, co-edited, and co-conceptualized platforms for multiple organizations to disseminate research about socially engaged art and theater. They include:

  • “Municipal-Artist Partnerships,” Co-researcher with Pam Korza, 2020.  A “relationship guide” to forging strong and sustainable creative partnerships between local governments and artists. Created through A Blade of Grass and Animating Democracy, a project of Americans for the Arts. Partly funded by an NEA Our Town grant.

  • A Blade of Grass magazine, Founding Editor, 2018-19. Field research centered on recipients of the A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art

    • Issue 1: Where (September 2018) Introduction, Rick Lowe Interview, jackie sumell feature

    • Issue 2: Who (March 2019) Intro & Interview with Elvira Dyangani Ose

  • Public: A Journal of Imagining America, Co-Founding Editor, 2012-16. A peer-reviewed, multimedia e-journal focused on humanities, arts, and d esign in public life. It aspires to connect what we can imagine with what we can do. Volumes 1-4: Editorials

Articles

Writings about the multiple roles of the arts and theater in particular to an array of contexts including:

  • “On Theater, Home, and Housing Equity,” HowlRound, January 2024.

  • “A River Runs Through It,” Next City, 2024.

  • “The Civic Turn: artists collaborating with municipalities,” with Aaron Landsman, in Extended Play. December 2022.

  • “Invitation to Participatory Research” and follow up article, HowlRound 2020

  • “Beyond the Other,” Howlaround, October 2019

  • “Notes from an Autumn Gardener: Reflections on Applied Theater and Bridging Distances,” Keynote, IDIERI 9, Auckland, New Zealand, July 2018. in The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 2019

  • “An Abiding Connection: US Counter Cultural Theater and the Seeds of Later Theatrical Movements,” Journal of Applied Cultural Studies, Poland 2019

  • “In Praise of Context: Microfest in Hawaii,” Network of Ensemble Theaters website, 2013 

  • “Art in Rebuilding Community: The Transforma Project in New Orleans,” www.communityarts.net, June 2007

  • “Dreaming in the Daytime,” The Grand Concourse, Bronx Museum of the Arts journal, winter 2006

  • “Ethnodrama review” Research in Drama Education, UK, Spring 2006

  • The Network of Ensemble Theaters Festival,” Theatre Journal performance review, Spring 2006

  • “The Stranger Within,” Performance Research 10.1, December (pp 123-125), 2004

  • “Creating a Generative Moment: An Interview with Arlene Goldbard,” www.communityarts.net/ readingroom, 2004

  • “Introduction to Community Art and Activism,” www.communityarts.net/ reading room, 2002    

  • “The Ecology of Theater-in-Community: A Field Theory,” www.communityarts.net/ reading room, 2002

  • “Writing Deeply: A Discussion with Three Writers: Linda Burnham, Sonja Kuftinec, Jan Cohen-Cruz,” CAN Conversations, www.communityarts.net 12/28/01-1/24/02, 2003

  • “Motion of the Ocean: Theatre for Social Change Since ‘the Sixties',” Yale/Theatre Spring, Theatre and Social Change, guest editor: Alisa Solomon (pp 95-107). 2001

  • “When the Gown Goes to Town,” Theatre Topics, Spring (pp 55-62) 2001

  • “Stars of Bethlehem,” cover story, American Theater, March (pp 16-19; 68-70); Reprint, Inside Arts Vol. 12 No. 4, 2000

  • “Legacy: the Art of Peggy Pettitt,” Black Masks cover story, Fall 2000

  • “A Hyphenated Field: Community-Based Theatre in the U.S.,” New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. xvi No. 4, England, November (pp 364-378) 2000

  • “Review,” three books on politics and performance in the US in the 1930s, TDR: A Performance Journal, Winter (pp 182-187) 2000

  • “Practice and Policy in Theatre and Development: A Personal Response,” African Theatre, London (pp 113-116). 1999

  • "Witnessing a Drama of Soul,” High Performance Vol 20 No 1, Spring (15-19) 1997

  • “Remembering Chez-Decroux,” with Deidre Sklar, The Mime Journal 1996

  • “An American Festival Project,” American Theatre, October 1994

  • The Drama Review T-127: "Boal at NYU: A Workshop and Its Aftermath;"  "Theatre of the Oppressed Workshops with Women: An Interview" with Mady Schutzman; co-compilation, Bibliography & Chronology, 1990

  • "Jeanne Fleming and Celebration Art," Urban Resources Vol.5, No.3 1989

  • Theatre Report: Freida Kahlo, Women and Performance Journal, 1984



  • “ROOTing Out Racism,” in Alternate ROOTS, co-authored with Joe Tolbert, New Village Press, 2025 (forthcoming)

  • “Home, Away, and Back Again,” Applied Theatre Reader, 2nd vol, ed Tim Prentki, Routledge Press, 2020

  • “Conversation on TO & Community,” w/ S Kuftinec & E Chen, The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed, Ed K. Howe, J. Boal, J.Soeiro, Routledge 2019

  • “One New York Rising Together? Arts &Culture in Neighborhood Ecosystems,” in Tensions, Tactics, and Imaginaries: The Roles of Art and Culture in Community Change, ed. M. Stephenson, Routledge 2015

  • “By Any Means Necessary,” in The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics, ed. R. Martin, Routledge Press 2015

  • “The Changing Relationship Between Theater and Performance Studies,” in Performance Studies: Sources and Perspectives, ed. Juliusza Tyszki, Wydawnictwo Kontekst, 2014

  • “HOME, New Orleans,” in Civic Engagement Post-Katrina, ed. George Sanchez and Amy Koritz, University of Michigan Press 2009 

  • “Border Crossing in Portland, Maine,” in The Applied Theater Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston, Routlege 2008 

  • “Introduction,” Performing Communities: Eight Grassroots Ensemble Theaters, by Bob Leonard and Ann Kilkelly, New Village Press 2006

  • “The problem democracy is supposed to solve’: the politics of community-based performance,” in The SAGE Handbook of Performance Studies, ed. D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press (pp 427-445) 2006 

  • “Twixt Cup and Lip’: Intentions and Executions of Community-based Art as Civic Expression,” Artistic Citizenship: A Public Voice for the Arts, ed. Mary Schmidt Campbell and Randy Martin, London: Routledge Press 2005

  • “Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable: the Free Southern Theater,” Group Theaters, ed. J Harding & C Rosenthal, Ann Arbor: U Mich Press

  • “Stretching,” The Grand Concourse, Bronx Museum journal, fall (6-10) 2005      

  • “At Cross Purposes: the Church Ladies for Choice,” from ACT UP to the WTO, ed. Benjamin Shepard and Ronald Hayduk, London and NY: Verso (pp 234-241), 2003               

  • “Speaking across Communities: the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange,” Performing Democracy, ed. Susan Haedicke and Tobin Nellhaus, Ann Arbor: U of Michigan (pp 213-225) 2001    

  • “Performing Difference, Discovering Common Ground,” in Nina Felshin, ed. But Is It Art? Bay Press (pp 117-140) 1995