David John Chávez (he/him/his) has been a South Bay Area-based theatre critic/reporter since 2009, and a journalist, theatre educator and director since 1990, having been a reporter and theatre/music critic for the Fresno Bee. His work has been featured nationally in American Theatre Magazine, TheaterMania and Quill Magazine (A Society of Professional Journalists publication) and regionally in Theatre Bay Area , KQED, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Mercury News/East Bay Times. David is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critic’s Circle, American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) LMDA and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ). With ATCA, he was elected to a three-year executive committee term in 2019 and was named Chair of the organization in July of 2021. He is formerly the co-chair of ATCA’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee, a group working on national initiatives to diversify criticism and expand cultural literacy to journalists of the American theatre. 

David has a B.A. in Theatre Arts from California State University, Fresno, an M.A. in directing from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and a masters in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University. In the summer of 2020, he was selected for a fellowship to the National Critics Institute through the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. He also served as a juror for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

When not watching, directing, or writing about theatre and the arts, he is rooting hard for the Oakland A’s, Golden State Warriors, San Jose Earthquakes, San Jose Sharks and Fresno State Bulldogs.

Send him an email at theatrechavez@gmail.com or follow him on twitter. Also check out his Bayareaplays.com Facebook page.