Brian Sostek

Brian Sostek’s exploits have ranged from acting in some of Hollywood’s most quickly cancelled sitcoms to touring theater and dance performances internationally. Over three decades, he has parlayed his background in various dance forms, his lifelong experience with comedy, and his fascination with verbal and physical play into a successful and constantly expanding career in the performing arts and in education. In the world of performing arts he has created and performed work for numerous theaters and companies including The Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theater Co., Ordway Center for Performing Arts, Park Square Theatre, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Zenon, Beyond Ballroom Dance Co. as well as Sossy Mechanics, which he founded with wife Megan McClellan and with whom he won a 2015 Ivey Award for Playwriting and Choreography. In the world of education, since 2003, he has taught creativity, collaboration, and communication founded in the best practices of the performing arts in combination with current understanding of neuroscience and behavioral psychology. Specifically, at the University of Minnesota, he has applied this work to developing a pedagogy in science communication, has created graduate courses the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine, and has taught numerous workshops and done individual coaching for scholars at CTSI, The Center for Immunology, The Masonic Cancer Center, Animal Science, The Interdisciplinary Fellowship Program in Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Health, M-ASCEND, and the Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering Department among others.