• ACTING
• ACTING AND DIRECTING
• PLAYWRITING
• STAGE DIRECTING
• THEATRE ARTS
• THEATRE, VOICE AND DICTION

Joe Turner Cantu is an actor trainer, director and playwright, Joe is Head of the Acting Program at The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) Department of Theatre Arts and Artistic Director of Oxford Shakespeare Festival. His teaching expertise is Acting process and Acting styles. His professional playwriting credits include several productions throughout the country of his play ROCK AND BETTY DANCE, winner of a Rockefeller playwriting grant award. His play, CROWN OF THUNDER, received its world premiere at Ole Miss in April of 2004, under his direction. His artistic directing background includes Artistic Director of Penobscot Theatre Company in Maine in the early 1990's and as Associate Artistic Director of a Houston equity theatre, Stages Repertory Theatre, for four years in the 1980's. Joe's professional directing credits include such companies as Grand Canyon Shakespeare Festival, Capitol City Playhouse in Austin, the Latino Theatre Festival (St. Ed's) in Austin, Virginia Shakespeare Festival, Stages Repertory Theatre and Penobscot Theatre Company. In July 1995, the North American Cultural Institute of Perú brought Joe to Lima to direct a professional Spanish-language production of Tennessee Williams' LA NOCHE DE LA IGUANA at the Teatro Bi-Nacional. In 2003, Joe returned to Lima, Perú with a Spanish-translation production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE (EL ZOO DE CRISTAL) by Tennessee Williams, which was invited to represent the U.S.A. at the International Theatre Festival in Lima. Joe has taught at Northern Arizona University, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and at his alma mater, Southern Methodist University, where he earned his MFA in Acting. Joe is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Inc.