Alexandra Mackenzie Johns
United Kingdom / Utah, literature & drama
“I am deeply committed to theatre as a revelatory expression of identity and faith, blending playwriting, devising, verbatim theatre, site-specific work, and scholarship to illuminate the stories that shape communities and individual lives.”
For her project at the residency, Alexandra is developing a verbatim theatre script that explores “doubt, spiritual loss, and the rediscovery of faith after a crisis.”
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Alexandra Mackenzie Johns, PhD, is a playwright, director, scholar, and educator specializing in large-scale theatrical events that bring communities’ sacred stories to life. Originally from Jersey in the British Isles, she now leads playwriting at Brigham Young University in Utah, where she explores site-specific theatre and the reciprocity between landscape and religious performance.
Her work bridges theory and practice, emphasizing performance-led research. She is currently engaged in three major projects: writing on walking the Mormon Trail with her family in 2024 to examine pilgrimage as performance while curating and performing stories from the journey; researching how embodiment strengthens religious memory between medieval female Christian mystics, such as Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, and contemporary Christians; and creating a verbatim theatre project exploring return-to-faith narratives across multiple religious backgrounds.
Alexandra has taught and collaborated with emerging artists in South Asia, East Africa, North America, and the Middle East. A co-convenor of the “Performance, Religion, and Spirituality” group within the International Federation for Theatre Research, she has presented internationally on religious theatre.
Committed to theatre as a revelatory expression of faith and identity, she blends writing, devising, verbatim theatre, and site-specific practices to illuminate religious stories. She and her husband, Dr. Peter Johns from Wales, share a love for adventure while raising their four children.
