Josh Fox (Artistic Director)

Josh Fox is the founder and Artistic Director of International WOW Company. Born and raised above 96th Street, he spent the first 18 years of his life almost entirely on the island of Manhattan. Since graduating from Columbia University with a degree in Theater Arts, he has lived in four countries in Asia and traveled to 25 others througout the world, creating and producing original international theater works in ten languages.

In 1996 he founded International WOW Company, a theater group with membership of over 100 actors, dancers, musicians, technical, and visual artists spanning 28 countries on 5 continents. With International WOW Company he has conceived, written, directed, and/or produced over 30 productions in Thailand, Indonesia, The Philippines, Japan and New York City, which have included Limitless Joy, The Expense of Spirit; Death of Nations, parts 1-4 and The Trailer; Orphan On God’s Highway; The BOMB; HyperReal America (Top Ten Shows of 2001, Time Out NY); Soon My Work; This is Not the Ramakian; The Sleeping and the Dead; Stairway to the Stars; and American Interference (Best in the Fringe Festival, Village Voice).

As the Artistic Director of International WOW, Josh has established himself as a significant force in New York’s downtown theatre community. In 2004, the New York Times hailed him as “one of the most adventurous impresarios of the New York avant-garde,” and Time Out NY has called him “one of downtown’s most audacious auteurs,” citing his “brilliantly resourceful mastery of stagecraft.” In 2003, International WOW was one of four theatre groups invited as featured performers to The Theatre Communications Group’s Biennial Conference in Milwaukee, recognizing the company’s growing importance in the American theatre.

In 2002, Josh wrote, directed, and produced International WOW Company’s breakout production, THE BOMB, one of the first major plays to address 9/11 and the war on terror from the point of view of the New York City residents who experienced it. A sweeping epic developed and performed with an indefatigable cast of 32, THE BOMB became an instant sensation. First opening in March of 2002, the show received overwhelming critical and popular response, sold out, and was extended by popular demand in an eight-week encore run in the summer of 2002. Excerpts from THE BOMB will be published in the Spring 2005 edition of Theater Magazine.

In International WOW’s most recent season, Josh wrote and directed two main stage productions, DEATH OF NATIONS, Part 1 (USA): The Comfort and Safety of Your Own Home (“a bracing coup de theatre” – Time Out NY) and The Expense of Spirit (“very powerful… carefully wrought” - New York Times). The full script of The Expense of Spirit will be published in the Spring 2005 edition of In Theatre. International WOW was also chosen to headline three major summer festivals in New York - Soho Think Tank’s Ice Factory Festival; HERE’s American Living Room Series; Boo Froebel’s Imagine NYC Festival of Arts, Issues and Ideas; and was featured in Vassar College’s New York Stage and Film Festival. In addition, Fox wrote and directed a special preview of the DEATH OF NATIONS play cycle, which was the featured performance in Ma-Yi Theatre Company’s “Performing Ethnicity Conference.”

Josh recently returned from Tokyo, Japan where he was working on Setagaya Public Theatre’s “Asian Collaboration Project.” The three-year program, created by Kentaro Matsui, brought together 16 notable writer-directors from Asian countries. Josh is the only non-Asian participant, receiving an invitation based on his extensive and critically acclaimed work in Asian countries.

As a 1999-2000 Asian Cultural Council Fellow, Josh worked in Thailand, the Philippines and Japan, exploring international theater and collaborating and/or studying with numerous artists, including Shinjuku Ryozanpaku, Suzuki Company of Toga, Pappa Tarahumara, Kazuo and Yoshto Ohno, Daisan Erotica, and the Philippine Educational Theater Association. In the Fall of 2005 Josh was the Francis Ann Cannon Artist in Residence at Sarah Lawrence college, where he taught a graduate level course and directed The Trojan Women, A Love Story, adapted from the play by Chuck Mee by Mr. Fox and graduate and undergraduate students at the college.Josh is currently working on his first feature film, Memorial Day which is being Executive Produced by Jim McKay and Michael Stipe’s production company C-100 and Morgan Jenness. It is a film version of the company’s 2004 shocker, Comfort and Safety and features Mr. Fox and members of International WOW Company.

Read what Time Out NY
has to say about Josh.