Joe Salvatore is an artist-researcher who creates live performances and video projects using interview-based data, found media artifacts, and historical events. He is the founder and director of the Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL) and the author of the forthcoming book Creating Ethnodrama: A Practical Approach (Guilford Press, 2025).

Current projects include an international research collaboration examining how interview-based verbatim performance interventions can disrupt discrimination in healthcare delivery; an ethnodrama exploring the impact of clergy sexual abuse on survivors' spirituality and health; and an interview project examining perceptions of the US presidency during the 2024 election cycle entitled That’s Not a Partisan Feeling, That’s Patriotic: A Portraits US Election 2024 Event.

In 2017, Joe collaborated with economist Maria Guadalupe (INSEAD-France) to create Her Opponent, a verbatim re-staging of excerpts of the 2016 U.S. presidential debates with gender-reversed casting. The Off-Broadway production of the project was nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Unique Theatrical Experience and has been covered by NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, out.com, Fox News, MSNBC, and ABC News, among others.

Subsequent projects focused on politics and current events include The Moore / Jones Challenge (2017), The Kavanaugh Files (2018), The Democratic Field (2019-2020), Guess the Candidate (2020), If You Wanna Switch Seats, We Could (2021), The Harris / Pence Flip (2021), and Whatever You Are, Be a Good One (2022), all through the Verbatim Performance Lab and in collaboration with other artist-researchers.

Other notable projects include Jenny Macdonald's The Tightrope Walker (SoloSIRENS 2023) and ENTHRONED (Dublin’s First Fortnight Festival 2016 & 2021, FringeNYC 2016, & Solo SIRENS 2019, and Irish tour 2023), ga(y)ze (with Troy Hourie and Caleb Teicher on 14th Street, NYC), open heart (FringeNYC 2010), and fag/hag (with Kate Nugent, FringeNYC 2000). Joe’s play III, about the 15-year menage between George Platt Lynes, Glenway Wescott, and Monroe Wheeler, received the Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Play from FringeNYC 2008 and was subsequently published in Best American Short Plays 2008-2009 (Applause Books).

Joe has presented his work at SXSW EDU, MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences & Sloan School of Management, Yale University School of Management’s Education Leadership Conference, University of Massachusetts, ATHE, AATE, AERA, ICQI, ISEEN Winter Institute, and at Tallaght Community Arts and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Joe is a Clinical Professor of Educational Theatre at New York University’s Steinhardt School, where he teaches courses in ethnodrama, verbatim performance, community-engaged theatre, and new play development. He also serves as the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs for the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions.

Awards include the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s Johnny Saldaña Outstanding Professor of Theatre Education Award for demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, creative activity, and service; NYU's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award; NYU Steinhardt's Teaching Excellence Award; NYU Steinhardt's Champions of Equity: Gender and Trans Justice Award; and the NYU LGBTQ Student Center's Dedication to Education Award.

Joe is a cluster member of the University of British Columbia's Research-based Theatre Collaborative, a collaborating faculty member with Arts & Health @ NYU, an advisory board member for Artists' Literacies Institute, and an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Member: Dramatists Guild of America, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and American Alliance for Theatre and Education.