DERON S. WILLIAMS (he/him) is a scholar, a freelance dramaturg and director, and an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Affiliate Faculty Member of the Institute for Racial Justice at Loyola University Chicago. He also serves as Loyola’s theatre program’s Dramaturgy Mentor, overseeing and mentoring students in production and new play development dramaturgy.

As a scholar of African American theatre, directing methods, pedagogies, and performance, Williams is the editor of Contemporary Black Theatre & Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity alongside Drs. Khalid Y. Long and Martine Kei Green-Rogers. As part of Methuen’s Agitations: Politics, Text, Performance series, this text accentuates the expansiveness of Black theatre and performance and the ways in which conventional and nonconventional performance techniques continue to serve as a vehicle for activism, rebellion, and solidarity. His scholarship has also appeared in The Journal of American Drama and Theatre and Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama. Williams is also working on a monograph, The Ground Beneath the Craft: Directing, Process, and Practice, a research-driven collection of interviews with theatre directors from underrepresented communities that examines how identity, culture, and social location influence rehearsal methodologies, collaborative processes, and aesthetic choices, positioning directing as both a creative practice and a culturally embedded form of knowledge.

Williams' creative scholarship includes various new and canonical productions. He is especially interested in new play development, documentary theatre, musical theatre, and theatrical works created by Black artists with black-centered stories. His directing and associate directing credits include An Enemy of the People and Trouble in Mind (Timeline Theatre); White Christmas and 1776 (Marriott Theatre), Fairview (Loyola University Chicago); Africa to America: A Celebration of Who We Are, The Brothers Size, Blood at the Root (Eastern Connecticut State University); The Exonerated (Spectrum Theatre); The Lil’ Flo, and Big Moe Show! (Hartford Stage), Aladdin Jr., Mulan Jr. (Kennedy Center), Clybourne Park (Texas Tech University), Crowns (Albany State University), and two new play development projects at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jump by Charly Evon Simpson and Leftovers by Josh Wilder. His dramaturgy credits include Eureka Day, Notes from the Field, The Lehman Trilogy, Trouble in Mind, Boulevard of Bold Dreams (TimeLine Theatre); Toni Stone (Goodman); and Anon(ymous) (Middle Tennessee State). He has also worked as a new play development dramaturg for Organized Chaos by Pravin Wilkins, Annelies by Oded Gross, and Without a Formal Declaration of War by Anya Pearson during the Great Plains Theatre Conference (GPTC) in Omaha, NE. Williams is currently serving as Associate Director for TimeLine Theatre’s production of An Enemy of the People and as director for Loyola University Chicago’s production of ntozake shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf.

As the recipient of multiple fellowships and awards, including the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Arts Research with Communities of Color (ARCC) Fellowship, North Star Collective (NSC) Faculty Fellowship, and Middle Tennessee State University’s Underrepresented Minority Dissertation Fellowship, Williams has presented research at national and international conferences and given invited talks at multiple high schools, colleges, and universities. He currently serves as VP of Conference 2026 for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and a member of the Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement Award Committee. He previously served on the Executive Board of the Black Theater Association, as SDC Initiative Chair for Region 1 – American College Theatre Festival, as Registration Coordinator for the August Wilson Society (AWS) 2020 conference, and on the National Association of Dramatic & Speech Arts, Inc. (NADSA). He is also an Associate Member of the Stage Directors & Choreographers Society (SDC).

Williams holds a B.A. in Theatre from Albany State University (GA), an M.A. in Arts Administration from Eastern Michigan University, and a Ph.D. in Theatre from Texas Tech University. Before joining the faculty at Loyola University Chicago, he taught at Eastern Connecticut State University, Middle Tennessee State University, and Albany State University.