I want to educate the public about what’s happening in the immigration crisis itself and inside the courts, about the refugees and how they are treated here, but also to make the performances beautiful in a way that will impart something profound to the audience. How do I put these stories into the most beautiful artistic form to go to the core of the human being? What I need from these performances is a call to action—for people to actually DO something. We need to educate them and impact them emotionally, so that people know what to do. This crisis is on us! We need to be haunted by their stories. We need to hear these stories over and over again so we cannot turn away. ~ Irina Kruzhilina
I create socially engaged theatre, with both performers and community members—especially youth—to address important issues like immigration, polarization, conflict, and peacebuilding.
Irina Kruzhilina is an award-winning theater maker whose roles include director, scenographer, experience designer, playwright, professor, and artistic director, creating work at the intersection of visual art, live performance, and civic engagement.
Since 2000, Irina has created and designed more than two dozen performances spanning interdisciplinary theatre, large-scale parades, opera, and site-responsive installations. Her work has been shown locally and globally at Times Square, Tokyo Disney, BAM, Prague National Theatre, the NY Philharmonic, the XXI Commonwealth Games, the Barbican Centre, and others.
Over the last two years, Irina has embraced theater as a “space of welcome,” focusing on the immigration crisis through collaborations with refugees and asylum seekers.
In 2023, Irina created SpaceBridge, a workshop and theatre project that brought together Russian refugee youth who fled their homes due to their families’ anti-war stance and now reside in NYC shelters with their American-born peers, to build a more welcoming world where new friendships can thrive and grow. SpaceBridge premiered as part of the 2025 Under the Radar Festival at the legendary off-Broadway La MaMa Theatre and later toured to ArtsEmerson’s Paramount Theatre in Boston. The project is now expanding into SpaceBridge Global—a youth engagement initiative that brings together local and refugee youth from around the world.
Notice to Appear, Irina’s newest project, investigates the hidden dynamics of U.S. immigration court hearings. It draws from extensive interviews with immigration judges, ICE attorneys, immigration lawyers, court interpreters, policymakers, and asylum seekers, as well as dozens of firsthand immigration court observations.
Irina is the founder of Visual Echo, a New York–based performance organization that creates bold, participatory performances and educational programs to foster dialogue and dismantle barriers between individuals of all backgrounds by bringing people together in new and unusual ways. Visual Echo harnesses the transformative power of conversation to bridge cultural, social, and political divides—challenging assumptions and confronting prejudice.
Irina is an assistant professor at The New School of Drama, where she co-developed the MFA in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. She is a La MaMa resident artist and a recipient of the 2024 Joan D. Firestone Fund Award and the 2024 Elliot Norton Award.
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