Polendo is an internationally recognized artist and the founding artistic director of Theater Mitu. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on AI and Performance, while Mitu was awarded a special Obie Award for over 25 years of sustained innovation under Polendo’s leadership, along with Co-Artistic Director Justin Nestor. Committed to challenging the parameters of theater research and practice, Polendo’s work is situated in the tension between acting and performance, theatrical design and installation, multi-media and emerging technology. His practice frames directing as a generative practice rigorously interjecting architecture, technology, dramaturgy, and curation.

Polendo has directed over forty-five original company-created works. Theater Mitu has been presented and developed nationally (including New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, Skirball, The Lincoln Center, NAATCO, Rattlestick Theater, 3LD Arts Center, The Kennedy Center, The McCarter Theater, The Perseverance-Alaska, The Alliance, Mark Taper Forum, A.C.T., Sundance, Watermill Center, NACL, Zspace, The Rubin Gallery, MassMOCA, NOLA Contemporary Arts Center, LATC, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mercury Store, Arts Emerson, Boston Museum of Science) and internationally (including Patravadi Center/Thailand, CCPN/Mexico, DUOC/Chile, Visthar/India, UB Blkbx/Mongolia, Mansion Blatt/Lebanon, Manarat Al Saadiyat/ UAE, NYUAD Arts Center/UAE, Kontakt Festival/Poland, CIFCET/ Egypt, MESSFestival/ Bosnia & Herzegovina, National Theater/ Bahrain).

Polendo’s work with Theater Mitu has been recognized by a range of awards, grants, and organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, MAP Fund, CEC Arts Link, Rolex Protégé Arts Initiative, New York State Council for the Arts, The Rosenberg Foundation, The Alpert Award, The Greenwald Foundation, The Mental Insight Foundation, and The Howard Gilman Foundation. He has helmed residencies with Theater Mitu at a range of esteemed artistic institutions including The Watermill Center, Sundance Theater Lab, The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and at The NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center.

Polendo currently serves as Dean for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. A distinguished professor, former chair of Tisch Drama, and founding director of Tisch’s Innovation Studio, he recently served as associate dean for Tisch’s Institute of Performing Arts.

Polendo was educated in Mexico and the US. He holds an MFA in Directing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television; an MA in Global Performance from Lancaster University in the U.K.; and a BS in Biochemistry from Trinity University.

Based in Brooklyn, he continues to teach while creating, developing and presenting work with Mitu in the US and Internationally.