Joe Barros (he/him) is a New York–based stage director and award-winning queer choreographer and writer whose work spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, international, and film. He is the Artistic Director of New York Theatre Barn, an inclusive home for original, culture-shifting musicals during incubation, which has developed new work since 2007 (joebarros.com).
His Broadway credits include Gigi (associate director). Off-Broadway and New York work includes Cagney (associate director), The Evolution of Mann (cast album), Bastard Jones, Urinetown (FIPAP), Nine (CAP 21/Molloy College), I Married Wyatt Earp (59E59 Theatres), Shoes & Baggage (The Cell), Sam's Room, and Alice in Alice's for Out of the Box Theatrics, which he co-wrote and which featured a company of actors with disabilities (joebarros.com). His choreography for Hard Times was a New York Times Critics' Pick and earned a New York Innovative Theatre Award nomination for Best Choreography (joebarros.com).
Nationally and internationally, Joe directed and choreographed two national tours of A Charlie Brown Christmas for Gershwin Entertainment and Aida in Singapore, and served as associate director on Beaches at Chicago's Drury Lane and A Taste of Things to Come at York Theatre Company, Bucks County Playhouse, and Broadway in Chicago (joebarros.com). Additional credits include Charlotte's Web (TheaterWorksUSA), Breathe with Matt Doyle and Max Clayton (cast album), Goodspeed, Signature Theatre in Washington, DC, Kaixinmahua in Shanghai, and The Phoenix Theatre Company, where he was Keynote Speaker for the 2022 Festival of New American Theatre. Recent projects include the new musical Love and Yogurt in New York, A New Brain at Five Towns College, and the film The Girl Who Left Home with Paolo Montalban. As a writer, he conceived Small Town Story by Sammy Buck and Brandon James Gwinn, and is currently writing a new musical with Ryan Hasse about Ryan White, built for an all-teenage cast (joebarros.com).
Joe has taught at Michigan State University, LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, Five Towns College, CAP 21/Molloy College, Southeastern Summer Theatre Institute, Broadway For All, Inside Broadway, and Music Academy International in Italy. At The Conservatory at NYPAA, he teaches Tap in the Musical Theatre & Dance Department, working with students on rhythm, precision, and performance quality while drawing on his career as a director and choreographer to show them how dance functions as storytelling inside a musical — and what the people on the other side of the audition table are actually watching for.
