Elliot Leffler is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Toronto, where he teaches undergraduates at the Scarborough campus and graduate students at the St. George (downtown) campus. As an artist and a scholar, Elliot explores how theatre can be used as a catalyst for intercultural, interfaith, and intergenerational dialogue. He has led theatre projects with white, Black, and Coloured South Africans, with Jews and Palestinians in Israel, with Kurdish and Arab Iraqis, with urban US high school students, and with racially-diverse houses of worship. These creative and scholarly projects frequently take Elliot away from traditional theatre spaces: he has worked in summer camps, prisons, rural villages, church basements, and urban high schools. Currently, Elliot is researching the diverse community of amateur artists that produces the Oberammergau Passion Play, in Oberammergau, Germany. Elliot holds a PhD in Theatre from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Cape Town, and a BS in Theatre from Northwestern University. Elliot is the author of Applied Theatre and Intercultural Dialogue: Playfully Approaching Difference, and has also published in The Drama Review, Research in Drama Education, Applied Theatre Research, Theatre Research International, Theatre Topics, and Contemporary Theatre Review.
Elliot is also a decidcated, award-winning teacher. His teaching interests include acting, directing, devising, improvisation, theatre history (with an emphasis on 20th century South African theatre), and Theatre of the Oppressed. He was recognized with the 2024 Assistant Professors Teaching Award at the University of Toronto - Scarborough, where he teaches undergraduates.
