A Dramaturg by Trade, a Leader by Design
Martine Green-Rogers has been doing theater since she was four years old. Her grandmother, sensing an abundance of energy that needed a constructive outlet, enrolled her in a children’s theater group in Norfolk, Virginia. What started as a way to channel a spirited little girl’s enthusiasm became a lifelong calling — one that has taken her from the stage to the rehearsal room to the classroom, and now to the dean’s office at DePaul University’s School of Theatre.
“I am the amalgamation of all the energy, care, and love that instructors of all sorts have put into me,” she says.
Green-Rogers is a dramaturg by training — a storytelling specialist who thinks deeply about structure, consequence, and meaning. That analytical lens, she says, is the same one she brings to leadership.
“I think about beginnings, middles, and ends. What is the impact of this choice in this moment — and how does that shape what comes next?” she explains. “That is one thing I bring to my leadership that comes directly from my work as a dramaturg.”
Her path to the dean’s office was shaped by a pivotal moment in her undergraduate years, when a professor pulled her aside and told her about a career she had never heard of.
“She said, ‘I see these things in you, and I feel like you need to know about this.’ If she hadn’t said that to me, who knows what my path would have looked like.”
That experience is precisely why she became an educator herself — because she knows firsthand how a single conversation can redirect an entire life.
The Cultural Shift She Is Most Proud Of
When asked about her proudest accomplishment since becoming dean in 2022, Green-Rogers did not point to a production or an accolade. She pointed to a cultural shift still in progress — one centered on helping every person in her building understand their value.
“It’s important to me that future artists and current artists — faculty, staff, and students alike — understand their worth and what we do as artists is a very human pursuit,” she says. “Humans are doing this work, and we need to take care of each other.”
Research, Violence, and the Joy on the Other Side
Green-Rogers’s academic research explores violence in African American theater — a field she approaches with both scholarly rigor and deep personal investment. She argues that Black playwrights have always had a unique pulse on the interplay between joy and pain in everyday life.
“When you look at an August Wilson play, there is joy and pain in the violence of everyday existence,” she says. “We survive despite the pain — and we find joy in the most amazingly beautiful small and large things. Part of the reason I focus on violence in African American theater is that it allows me to uplift the joy that is on the other side of that.”
Chicago, DePaul, and What’s Coming
Green-Rogers is enthusiastic about Chicago’s theater scene, which she describes as a “salad bowl” — not a melting pot, but a vibrant mix of distinct stories and voices that all find a home in this city.
DePaul’s upcoming season reflects that spirit. The school is presenting an exciting lineup including Paradise Lost and The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God — two productions in conversation with each other about faith, culture, and creation. A playful season of “childlike wonder” also includes a return to the source material of Peter Pan, far beyond the Disney version.
The school is also expanding its Creative Routes summer camp program to include seniors — because, as Green-Rogers puts it, people of all ages enjoy making art. A growing dance minor, a new dance concert series, and the beloved annual graduate showcase round out a season she describes with one word: vibrant. For artists and educators wondering whether there is room for them in the industry, Green-Rogers’s message is simple.
“Don’t give up. There’s a lot about theater that can feel like gatekeeping, like there are a bunch of barriers. But if you have a story to tell, someone is going to want to see and hear it.”
Martine Green-Rogers has spent her entire life proving that.
