About Josh Pohja

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Josh Pohja is the Executive Artistic Producer of Wisconsin Classic Stage (est. 2025), where he directed the company’s inaugural presentation of Henry V, launching the organization with a bold, ensemble-driven reimagining of Shakespeare that emphasizes clarity, physicality, and textual precision.

Between 2022 and 2024, Pohja directed several acclaimed productions as Artistic Director of Vanguard Productions, including All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, Antigone, and My Name is Rachel Corrie, which received both critical praise and audience acclaim for their direction and text-driven storytelling. Critics have noted his distinctive approach, with one writing, “Pohja’s blocking…make the play feel lyrical and appropriately deterministic. I’ve seen many great things…, but this represents a new height in sophistication.” Earlier in his career, he co-founded and served as artistic director of Duende Collective in Los Angeles, cultivating original productions and contemporary reimaginings of classic theatre.

In Milwaukee, he has collaborated with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, co-producing the 2022 Young Playwrights Festival and assistant directing Molly Rhode on Great Expectations. He has taught Shakespeare, acting, and Viewpoints throughout the city and directed educational theatre productions with First Stage’s Young Company and Pius XI Catholic High School, staging works including Hamlet, The Laramie Project, Much Ado About Nothing, An Enemy of the People, Blue Stockings, She Kills Monsters, Golden Child, and No Child

A graduate of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, Pohja trained during the residency of the Moscow Art Theatre with Anatoly Smeliansky, Andrei Șerban, Natalia Fedorova, Bulgarian director Mladen Kiselov, Ibsen scholar Brian Johnston, Victoria Santa Cruz, Gregory Lehane, Don Marinelli, and Don Wadsworth.

He leads the Wisconsin Classic Stage Actors Studio, the company’s resident training program, where he develops performers through rigorous study of classical text, voice, and physically driven ensemble practice. As an actor, he has performed nationally with The Guthrie Theater, The Acting Company, The Old Globe, and Alley Theatre, as well as at Judson Church, HERE Arts Center, and the New York Fringe Festival. Pohja is an alumnus of the Wisconsin Directors Lab and Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI), a graduate of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, and a 25-year member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.