BIO + HEADSHOTS
Teo Castellanos is an independent actor/writer/director, who for the past 25 years has worked solely in devised theater, film, and television. Teo is a Doris Duke Artist 2021, United States Artist Fellow 2019, and a Sundance Institute Screen Writers Intensive Fellow 2015. His award-winning solo NE 2nd Avenue, commissioned by Miami Light Project, toured extensively for a decade and won the Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland 2003. He is the recipient of several awards and grants including the National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, MAP Fund, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, National Performance Network, Knight New Works, Knight Arts Challenge, Knight Foundation People’s Choice Award, Miami-Dade County Cultural Affairs and also won the State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship 2005 and 2013. Teo’s most recent solo, Third Trinity, was directed by long-time collaborator and Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney. He founded the Dance/Theater Company Teo Castellanos D-Projects in 2003 and is also Artistic Director of the devised theater company Combat Hippies. Teo has toured solo and company works throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, China, and the Caribbean. Some acting theater credits include playing Elegba in Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size, (Miami) and Santos in The Hittite Empire’s Skeletons of Fish (London). Film credits include playing opposite Matt Dillon in Sunlight Jr. and opposite John Leguizamo in Empire. Teo is a member of SAG/AFTRA, an Associate Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and holds a BFA in Theater from Florida Atlantic University. Teo is an ordained Zen practitioner and belongs to the 44th generation of the Vietnamese Lineage of the Lam Te (LinJi) Zen School. He has worked as a volunteer at Everglades Correctional Institute teaching both Theater and Zen.
