Jay Stratton (Producing Artistic Director)

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 

Sydney Monroe Gaglio (Production Stage Manager & Marketing Manager) is a theatre artist from El Paso, Texas, who has recently returned after 8 years away in New York for university, work, and life. 

Their most recent stage management credits include the last two seasons of the Madeline Park Shakespeare Festival, Eden Performing Arts’ Shakespeare in American Communities School Tour,  Julius Caesar (Teatro Neplanta), Al’s Club (Teatro Neplanta), The Thanksgiving Play (Teatro Neplanta), The Motherf#cker in the Hat (Teatro Neplanta), Romeo and Juliet (Teatro Neplanta), and Aquerón: El Rio de la Tragedia, with Mexico City’s Xipe Arts Collective at the Cherry Arts in Ithaca, NY. 

Syd is thrilled to be doing theatre work that they believe in, back in their hometown, and they are so grateful to their family and friends for all of their continued love and support.