Peter O’Connor
Peter O’Connor is the Director of the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation, at the University of Auckland.
He is an internationally recognised expert in making and researching applied theatre and drama education. He has made theatre in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, earthquake zones and with the homeless. He has over 100 research publications, with ten edited or sole authored books. Peter was the founding director of Everyday Theatre, a national theatre in education programme on preventing family violence and child abuse that has worked with over 80,000 children. His work in Christchurch schools following the series of earthquakes led to UNESCO funded research and programme development and the development of the Teaspoon of Light Theatre Company.
He led the development of Te Rito Toi, an online resource to support the return to schools during COVID-19 by using an Arts and well-being approach. Downloaded over 400,000 times, over 60,000 teachers world-wide attended seminars on the resource. In 2019 the play he directed with the Hobson Street Theatre Company, New Zealand’s only theatre company for people who are or have been homeless, won the Arts Access Creative New Zealand Community Arts Award. He has continued his theatre making with the homeless at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles with the Skid Row Housing Trust.
In 2020 He was presented with the President’s Award by Drama New Zealand for his life-long contribution to Drama education and social justice
