Samara Gaev (she/her) is a NY based activist, educator, trainer, theatre director, performer.
She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, a social justice based hip-hop theatre company for high school and college-aged youth in NYC. Using theater & media to examine history and learn about models for creating social change, Samara calls upon language and critical thinking skills as tools to develop solution driven citizens of the world. She is honored to be the Resident Artist/Scholar at Columbia University’s Teachers College: Graduate School of Education.
She serves as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directing their Arts & Justice program for teens. Samara graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She completed advanced training in Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed from the Paul A. Kaplan Center for Educational Drama and received her Master’s Degree in Performance Studies from NYU‚ Tisch School of the Arts with a thesis that explored trauma, advocacy, and witnessing. She is a recipient of the 2009 Next Generation of Leadership Fellowship through the Center for Whole Communities, where she is now faculty. Her active involvement in progressive social change has taken her beyond the classroom and the stage, and towards actualizing the change she wishes to see.
