Bio
Shavonne Coleman (she/they) is an applied theatre artist, fabulist, director, playwright, dramaturg, and educator whose work centers community-engaged storytelling. Detroit-born and Detroit-rooted, Shavonne maintains deep artistic and professional ties to the city, continuing to collaborate with youth, professional artists, and institutions while working locally and nationally. As an equity actor, Shavonne’s recent performance work includes the role of Lulu in Between Riverside and Crazy at the Detroit Repertory Theatre.
Coleman is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, where their teaching, research, and creative practice span Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA), applied theatre, devised performance, and transformative learning. Their work emphasizes collaborative processes, liberatory pedagogy, and theatre as a tool for social change, particularly with young people and historically marginalized communities.
They hold a BA in Theatre from Grand Valley State University and an MFA in Applied Drama/Theatre for the Young from Eastern Michigan University. Shavonne has performed as a storyteller and actor across applied, educational, and professional theatre contexts and has directed numerous youth and community-centered productions, including Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Incredible Jungle Journey of Fenda Maria, and Butt Naked.
Previously, Shavonne served as Director of Theatre for Dialogue and Assistant Director for Transformative Learning at the University of Texas, where they led interpersonal violence prevention ensembles using Forum Theatre methodologies. Their work has been recognized nationally, including receiving the Ann K. Flagg Multicultural Award from the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE). Shavonne has also directed youth performances internationally.
Recent projects include adapting Your Name Is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow for Seattle Children’s Theatre and developing the original superhero play Cause Play as part of the TYA BIPOC Superheroes Project, commissioned by Spinning Dot Theatre and Eastern Michigan University. Cause Play was produced in April 2025. Shavonne’s research and creative practice encompass projects such as Uncovering Hidden and Erased Histories in Theatre for Young Audiences and The Epistemology of ‘Joy and Pain: It’s Like Sunshine and Rain’, which examine theatre practice and performance as methodologies for community-centered creation and for challenging and expanding the theatrical canon. Shavonne also maintains an ongoing creative partnership with Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, where they devise, adapt, write, direct, and coach pre-professional youth theatre, most recently All Hail, a contemporary retelling of Julius Caesar developed in collaboration with Detroit young artists.
