Thomas Murray

Thomas Murray comes to the teaching of data communication and community engagement from an arts background. He is a practitioner of documentary theatre, where live actors voice non-fiction narratives sourced directly from historical artifacts and interviews with real people. He dramatizes qualitative research and data in a way that becomes compelling to an audience.

As a teacher of performance, Thomas works in all kinds of classrooms. He previously directed the Storycatchers Theatre ensemble for youth incarcerated at the Illinois Youth Center at Warrenville. During his graduate studies in applied theatre, he taught performance coursework to STEM undergraduates majoring in electrical engineering, computer science, chemistry, and mathematics. Thomas believes the empathetic imagination required to inhabit a character’s story is wonderful practice for public science communication.

Here at Equitech Futures, Thomas applies his practice of public dialogue toward building rich and interconnected communities of young innovators. They build the trust necessary to take these leaps together through narrative exercises and collaborative projects.

Beyond Equitech Futures, Thomas is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and The Midwives Artistic Collective. He is the founding artistic director of Waltzing Mechanics, an ensemble for documentary performance, and the creator of EL Stories, a non-fiction performance series which ran for eight years at the Greenhouse Theater Center in Chicago. He has been honored with fellowships from the National Academy of Sciences and Ping Chong + Company, an artistic apprenticeship with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and an outstanding alumnus award from Ball State University. His original plays and interviews have been published in ArtsPraxis by New York University and Conversations in Community Change by Virginia Tech.