JACOB G. PADRÓN

Jacob is the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of The Sol Project.

 

What started out as a seed of an idea has grown to become a multi-year, multi-partner, national theatre initiative that has supported hundreds of Latiné artists and seeded the new American theatre with a kaleidoscopic body of work. In 2023, The Sol Project was awarded an Obie for our “unprecedented championing and support of Latiné voices in theatre.”

In addition to his leadership with The Sol Project, Jacob is the Artistic Director of the Tony Award- winning Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, where he is leading the company through a historic transformation as they embrace a new producing model by activating the many “stages” across the New Haven region and bring theatre to all. For his work with Long Wharf, Jacob was named Person of the Year by the National Theatre Conference and a “king of creativity” by Town & Country Magazine. The work of the company has also been featured by the NYTimes, PBS News Hour, and NPR. Jacob has held senior-level artistic positions at theatre companies across the country. He was the Senior Line Producer at New York’s The Public Theater where he worked on new plays, musicals, and Shakespeare in the Park. During his tenure at The Public he supported productions by Tarell Alvin McCraney ("Head of Passes"), Scott Z. Burns ("The Library"), A. Zell Williams ("The Urban Retreat"), Mary Kathryn Nagle ("Manahatta"), Universes ("Party People"), Stew & Heidi Rodewald ("The Total Bent"), Tracey Scott Wilson ("Buzzer"), Lemon Andersen ("Toast"), Richard Nelson ("The Gabriels"), Suzan Lori Parks ("Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 and 3"), Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub ("Twelfth Night"), Daniel Sullivan ("Troilus and Cressida") and National Asian American Theatre Company ("Awake and Sing"), among many others.

He was formerly on the artistic staff at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago where he oversaw the artistic programming in the Garage – Steppenwolf’s dedicated space for new work, new artists, and new audiences. From 2008 to 2011, he was an Associate Producer under Bill Rauch at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he was instrumental in producing all shows in the 11-play repertory. He was a part of the producing team that transferred OSF productions to Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, Arena Stage, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Under the leadership of his late mentor, Diane Rodriguez, Jacob was also the producer of Suzan-Lori Parks’ "365 Days/365 Plays" for Center Theatre Group at the Music Center, a collaboration that included hundreds of artists across Los Angeles.

Prior to his post at Long Wharf Theatre, Jacob was on staff at Time Warner Inc. (HBO, Warner Bros., and Turner) where he supported the company’s cultural investments department and identified content creators for future media projects. He is currently on the faculty at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale where he teaches artistic producing in the MFA theatre management program. He’s member of the Advisory Council for the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Artistic Council for People’s Theatre Project. He has spoken about artistic leadership at universities across the country.

 

Originally from Gilroy, California, Jacob holds a BA from Loyola Marymount University and an MFA from Yale School of Drama. His first artistic home was El Teatro Campesino and he’s a proud alumnus of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, a volunteer program committed to social justice around the world. He dedicates his work to the memory of Diane Rodriguez and Lisa Garcia Quiroz.