headshot of Santi Castro. Santi has a curly black-gray hair cropped on the sides and is wearing a sheet top with a black spiked leather vest over it. Santi has many tattoos, including a red robin on the left cheek.
Student

'23

Theater - Directing, Playwriting & Production (BFA)

Santi Tonauac Castro (he/him) is an Indigenous Mexican-Cuban 2spirit maker. Santi writes doom jazz anarchy bombs in shape of play, poem, and sculpture. He’s part bird, part warrior, destroyer and protector.

You can catch him working with youth teaching visual art and theater at Mural Arts and Taller Puertorriqueño. His play Gente Del Sol was in PlayPenn’s 2022 annual new play festival, he is a 2019 Youngarts Playwriting winner, and has worked with The Arden, Quintessence, and 1812 Productions.

Additionally, Santi has received a grant to build an installation at Fairmount’s Hatfield House, has a job at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and has had his art featured on SEPTA bus stops. 

“I learned the art of failing, the art of destruction, and the grand importance of community through the DPP program. You start in one place in the program and could never expect the magic you will create that will transform your art form and person. I would never have predicted my work to be so vulnerable, bold and visceral.”

santi standing in a grand marble chamber against a backdrop of stairs with a golden statue holding a bow at the top. children in pink tshirts are seated on the floor looking at Santi, who is leaning and pointing and looking directly up at the ceiling. santi is wearing all black.

 

santi seated in a white wicker chair wearing snakeskin cowboy boots with a large goofy cow head mask. the back wall is all red drapes, with a white bust to the right of the chair and a stop sign to the left