Ioanna Katsarou is a director, actor, theater educator, and producer. She is the co-artistic director of Eclipses Group Theater NY and a founding member of the former Aktis Aeliou Art Theater, which was honored as “The Best Regional Theater in Greece” by the Greek Critics Association in 2006 and nominated for the same award in 2003.

She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab (2017) and has been collaborating as a director with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) since 2020.

Recent directorial credits include:
Emilia (AADA, 2025 & 2023), I Want a Country (EGTNY, 2024, Flushing Town Hall Grant Award), AntiGonick (AADA, 2024), The Winter’s Tale (AADA, 2024), Bakkhai (Company of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 2023), Raving Reason (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Flushing Town Hall Grant Award, 2022), Shelter in Love (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Double Grant Award by QCA, 2022), I Want a Country and Lysistrata (AADA, 2022), In Chorus(Double Grant Award by QCA, 2021), The Trojan Women (AADA, 2020), Hercules: In Search of a Hero (Abrons Arts Center and LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Double Grant Award by QCA, 2018–2019), and Farewell (Solo Festival, 2018, “Best Poetic Show” Award).

As an actor, she has performed at La MaMa E.T.C.; Classic Stage Company/Ashes Company; LaGuardia Performing Arts Center; the Delphi European Festival for Ancient Greek Drama; the Greek Cultural Center in New York; the New Theater of Thessaloniki; Aktis Aeliou Theater; and the National Theater of Northern Greece (Athens Festival, Herodion Atticus), among others.

Notable leading roles include:
Clytemnestra (Classic Stage Company, Off-Broadway), Cassandra (La MaMa, Ellen Stewart Stage), Queen Atossa (La MaMa, G.C.C. of NY, and St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival), Goddess Demeter (The Cell Theater), Phaedra (Delphi Festival for Ancient Greek Drama), Board Member No. 4 (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center and Cairo International Theater Festival), Catherine in Suddenly Last Summer, and Medea in Medea’s Trilogy by Heiner Müller (Aktis Aeliou Theater).

For Eclipses Group Theater NY, she has directed:
The Proposal by Anton Chekhov (Hellenic Cultural Center), I Can’t Pay? I Won’t Pay! by Dario Fo (co-director, Hellenic Cultural Center), Raus! Get Outta Here! (Stathakeio Center and National Hellenic Museum, Chicago), and I’m Dreaming. Am I? by Luigi Pirandello (SCENA Italian Theater Festival NY, Cherry Lane Theater). She also wrote and directed The Princess Goes to War.

With Aktis Aeliou Theater and Workshop, she directed Autobiography – In the Opposite Direction by Thomas Bernhard, as well as plays by Brecht, Peter Weiss, Tennessee Williams, Fassbinder, Chekhov, and Lorca. At the Greek Cultural Center NY, her directing credits include Mommy, Mother, Mom by Giorgos Dialegmenos, and Babies Are Brought by the Stork and In-Laws from Tirana by M. Reppas and T. Papathanasiou.

She teaches Greek Theater at the Hellenic Cultural Center NY.

She studied theater at the National Theater of Northern Greece, computer science at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, and music at the Municipal Conservatoire of Thessaloniki.