Luane Davis Haggerty

Luane Davis Haggerty, Ph.D. (Director, Actor, Professor, interpreter), is a scholar and creative practitioner whose work bridges leadership, the arts, and access-centered practice. She holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change through the Arts and is a Pulitzer Prize–nominated playwright for Windows of the Soul (Drama, 2007). A co-founder of IRT Theater in New York City, her work reflects a lifelong commitment to artistic rigor, inclusive practice, and the transformative power of creative leadership.

See dissertation: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/etd/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=antioch1166037841  

As an Educator, she is a Principal Lecturer at RIT/NTID in the Performing Arts department. Notable achievements include winning the Distinguished Public Service Award, The RIT Humanitarian Award and she has been nominated nearly every year for the Eisenhart Excellence in Teaching Award at RIT. She is an active presenter on the topic of Deaf/hearing theater and has traveled internationally. Her students perform for local colleges frequently in a group she created called Dangerous Signs. She also wrote the curriculum and established the Theater minor for Roberts Wesleyan College. 

As an actor she has appeared in productions ranging from Shakespeare to Sondheim and has appeared on stages from Broadway to regional and touring productions. She was recently featured as an actor in GEVA’s FONT productions of new works as well as  in the Avant Guard production at IRT in New York’s Greenwich Village titled YOVOs which appeared on the cover of the New York Times Art section. 

As a director. Dr. Haggerty was an original co-founder of the IRT theater in New York City. http://irttheater.org/  Awards for her direction which blend Deaf and hearing actors for over 20 years include: “Emperor Jones “which won the NYC Off Off Broadway Review Award,” A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Little Shop Of Horrors” which won Rochester CITY newspaper’s “Most Popular Local Theatrical Production” award. Her production for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) “Fences” won the Kennedy Center College Theater Festival award for Excellence in Ensemble and three of the actors won nominations for the Irene Ryan acting award.  She is honored to have been the director of the first post Covid production of Rochester’s Shakespeare in the Park with “The Tempest,” acknowledged by the Broadway World Central New York category for innovative production. 

As an ASL Interpreter, she is the GEVA Theater Interpreter Coordinator and created a collaborative for theatrical certified interpreter called StageHands. She was recently featured as an actor in GEVA’s FONT productions of new works as well as in the Avant Guard production at IRT in New York’s Greenwich Village titled YOVOs. She was also recently awarded the GEVA Theater Essie Calhoun Award recognizing her use of diversity in the Arts. 

Luane listens for what art can make possible; bridging communities, opening new artistic expression, sharing artistic passionate performer and collaborator. She hopes to be a bridge person using these theater skills and training to help heal division s in the community through the use of theater.