Daniel Irizarry
- Lecturer in Theater Arts
- djio@mit.edu
- Office
- W97-259
- Phone
- (917) 887-8247
- Web
- one-eighththeater.com
Irizarry is currently directing and conceptualizing an original episodic stage telenovela at MIT written by Junot Díaz with music by composer and MIT Associate Professor Miguel Zenón, slated for production in Spring 2027. He is also directing Bad Money by Robert Lyons as part of a residency at The Mercury Store in Brooklyn and directing/performing in a new play The Boar by Ben Holbrook.
Irizarry is a recipient of the 2026 Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Fellowship, through which he is conducting research on actor’s training with Romanian German Theatre director Niky Wolcz. He was also invited as faculty for the first Latinx Common Theatre Laboratorio at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working with 32 Latinx actors from all over the United States.
Most recently, he directed and performed Prof. Watson: A Pataphysical Lecture at the Down To Earth and Prelude Festivals in NYC (initiated by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center) and at PhysFestNYC 2026 (Stella Adler Center) of which he also helped curate. In Summer 2025, he directed and performed My Onliness at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania. In Fall 2025, he served as a guest artist and professor at Vilniaus Kolegija in Lithuania, leading an intensive Theatre LAB seminar.
The balance of power is ever-shifting in Daniel Irizarry’s thrillingly kaleidoscopic, boldly physical world.
The New York Times
Other notable credits include directing/performing Class Dismissed at La MaMa ETC’s Ellen Stewart Theatre in NYC, directing and devising Plum Box—Strange—Ideal and more than…, a piece based on 10 poems by South Korean artist Yi Sang at MIT in collaboration with Harvard University and Berklee College of Music with music by Woody Pak.
Irizarry directed and conceptualized Retratos at Temporales Internacionales de Teatro and Universidad de Los Lagos in Puerto Montt, Chile. His directing credits also include Ultra Left Violence by Robert Lyons presented as the closing production of the New Ohio Theatre in NYC; The Maids by José Rivera (a New York Times Critic’s Pick); UBU by Adam Szymkowicz (a Time Out NY Critic’s Pick); the U.S. premiere of Busu by Yukio Mishima at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival; YOVO by Robert Lyons presented in NYC, Poland, Cuba, and South Korea; My Onliness by Robert Lyons at the New Ohio Theatre (named one of the best Off-Broadway performances of 2022 by TheaterMania); The Madman and the Nun by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz in Ankara-Turkey, Gardzienice International Theatre Festival in Poland, at Pregones Theater NYC, and at Bohemian National Hall in NYC.
As an educator, Irizarry has served as Professor at LMTA (Vilnius, Lithuania), Visiting Assistant Professor at Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey), Assistant Professor in the Acting Department at the Seoul Institute of the Arts (South Korea), and Guest Artist/Professor at Folkwang University (Essen, Germany).
Irizarry holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA in Drama from the University of Puerto Rico. He is the Artistic Director of the NYC-based One-Eighth Theater.
Related Subjects
Acting Styles
21T.301 / 21T.501