About Us

Now in its fourth season, Jay is the Producing Artistic Director of the Madeline Park Shakespeare Festival which adapts and reconceives the works of the bard into productions that are fun, family-friendly, and free for all El Pasoans. 

For the last eight years, Jay has worked as a professor of Theatre at the University of Texas at El Paso where his research has focused on the reinvention of classical theatre. Utilizing found spaces, non-traditional structures, and bilingual texts, Jay adapts and reframes classical material to heighten its value for 21st century audiences.

Jay is the co-adapter and creator of UTEP’s acclaimed bilingual, A Christmas Carol en la Frontera, as well as the covid era, site-specific outdoor production of Lysistrata. Jay also created UTEP’s Halloween productions of Bloody Shakespeare! and Shakespeare’s Asylum. Jay is also the writer and director of the irreverent Covid comedy, Keeping Distance.

Before coming to UTEP, Jay spent nearly two decades as a New York based professional actor working on stage and screen. Some of Jay’s favorite acting projects include the film Wanted Man with Dolph Lundgren and Kelsey Grammer, a lead appearance on ABC’s What Would You Do, and the title role in Oedipus at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. 

For more, check out www.jay-stratton.com

Having previously played Olivia in MPSF’s Twelfth Night, Isabella is thrilled to be collaborating with MPSF once more as Artistic Associate.

Isabella is currently an English teacher at Franklin High School and a PhD student in Teaching, Learning and Culture at UTEP.

She received her bachelor's degrees in English and Theater (including a thesis on Much Ado about Nothing), and a master's in education. She has previously collaborated on several productions with Shakespeare in Yosemite as an actress, musician, and curriculum advisor. She has also performed with Teatro Neplanta in their 2024 production of Dream House.

As an English teacher, she often facilitates students’ first encounters with Shakespeare, and thus is passionate about making Shakespeare accessible and relevant, and about sharing the beauty of the language and stories.