Jack Romans (he/him/his) is an American theatre maker and educator. His work uses youth-inclusive and puppetry techniques to create bridging moments across ages and cultures through live performance. His work commits to learning from all things and challenging the notion of waste through wonder. Sparking and including young imaginations is at the heart of his craft.

Jack has created theatrical productions all over the world, including Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, England, and Japan. Jack has performed in numerous productions with the Ordway Center for Performing Arts, The MNOpera, Studio’62, Williams Opera Workshop, the Children’s Theatre Company, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, and has sung with the Academy Chorale at Carnegie Hall. As an educator, Jack has worked in a wide variety of academic and artistic settings. He has designed and led courses for young artists at the pre-K, grade school, and undergraduate levels as well as several adult professional development classes in voice, dance, clown, puppetry, design, and musical theatre. His pedagogy is rooted in interdisciplinary, gamified, and experiential learning. His teaching practices draw from le Jeu of École Philippe Gaulier, Obstacle Work, and Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. Jack also incorporates upcycling into his puppetry and music work with Ohana Arts, Usaginingen, the Waikiki Aquarium, and kani ka ʻōpala to develop upcycling workshops and performances.

Jack is continuing his work in the field of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) as a Master’s Candidate at the university of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He is a graduate of Williams College where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. He completed his degree with Honors, was part of the early round of inductees into the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and received the Gilbert W. Gabriel Prize in Theatre. Jack has also trained with the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art and the NYU Tisch New Studio on Broadway.

Jack is a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a year-long travel grant applied to creating intercultural TYA and arts education. He has also received a Graduate Degree Fellowship from the East-West Center, the Faith C. Ai Memorial Scholarship, and the Winifred Ward Scholarship from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. All of these grants support Jack’s multicultural and educational theatre practice in Hawaiʻi. Jack is also one of the inaugural artists in the Alliance Theatre and TYA/USA’s TVY (Theatre for Very Young) Incubation Program. This program is supporting the creation of his most recent upcycling theatre project, Helping Hands, co-created with Cameryn Richardson.