Welcome

Elina de Santos is an award-winning director, producer and casting director. Her exceptional storytelling skills have kept her on the cutting edge of the industry for years.

"Director Elina de Santos, a proven practitioner who has demonstrated her theatrical mettle again and again over the years, opts for sincerity and simplicity in a luminous staging that ranks among the very best of her many stage successes. " Kathleen Foley (2025)

Elina’s work teaching and coaching actors for two decades in Los Angeles, New York, and throughout the United States, Canada and Australia particularly prepares her for directing actors with unique understanding:

“She has the rare ability to work deeply with actors and yet not be in thrall to them, to be entirely receptive and yet lead them to the play with integrity and strength.”

From being a defining director of American Classics:

“Elina has a terrific theatrical sense for the American play, and an uncanny ability to guide actors into performances that make these plays soar”

to creating a circus version of Romeo & Juliet with the deaf community: “No melding of talent could be more of a match made in heaven than Deaf West and Elina de Santos, who conceived the project and directed with exquisite imagination”

to tackling new works:

“The world premiere production by the Rogue Machine company [directed by Elina de Santos] is vivid, moving and often hilarious. As the play that ends its impressive inaugural season, "Razorback" announces Rogue Machine as one of the most ambitious and accomplished new theater companies in LA.”