Sasha Anawalt is director of USC Annenberg Arts Journalism Programs. A faculty member of USC Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism, she founded and directs the master’s degree program in specialized journalism (the arts) and the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program, as well as the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater. In June 2011, she built and staffed Engine28.com, the pop-up newsroom, covering all things theater in L.A. for six days only with 40 journalists from 28 media outlets across the country.
She is the author of the best-selling cultural biography, The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company (Scribner). Anawalt was chief dance critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, LA Weekly and KCRW. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times,SoHo Weekly News, Montreal Gazette, Dance Magazine, TV Guide, Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com), KUSC and MSNBC-online sites. Anawalt served on the 2006 and 2007 Pulitzer Prize Committee juries for criticism. She was born in Manhattan, graduated from Barnard College and now lives in Pasadena with her husband; they have three children.