Jara Martínez Valderas is an Assistant Professor at the Complutense University (approved as Associate Professor by ANECA) for the Department of Hispanic Literatures and Bibliography. She is also a member of the Instituto del Teatro de Madrid. She teaches, among other things, the Master in Theatre and Performing Arts at ITEM and has been a coordinator of the external internship programme since the 2016/2017 academic year. Between 2008 and 2018, she was a teacher at the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Castilla y León. She has held the positions of Head of Studies and Head of the Stage Direction Department, and has worked as a teacher and content writer for the Master in Advanced Theatre Studies at the Universidad Internacional de la Rioja.

She has a degree in Stage Direction from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte and a doctorate cum laude from the University of Granada, Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, Literary Theory, Art Theory and Comparative Literature programme.  She received the scholarship of excellence for the Diploma of Advanced Studies from the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Granada, Department of General Linguistics and Literary Theory.

She specialises in theatre staging and stage space. She is the author of Manual de espacio escénico: terminología, fundamentos y proceso creativo. She has written chapters for monographs and articles in prestigious journals, coordinated monographs and participated in conferences, and was a member of the Scientific Committee and director of the V International Congress of Young Researchers in Theatre Studies. She has contributed research to two R+D+I research projects and has participated in two of the university’s own groups. She has directed two doctoral theses completed at UCM and is currently in the process of directing three more.  She has directed more than twenty Master’s dissertations.  She is head researcher for the teaching innovation project: Stage project for the historicist reconstruction of the dramatic prologue and the auto sacramental La vida es sueño by Calderón. She is the editor of the magazine Pygmalion. Revista de teatro general y comparado of the Instituto del Teatro de Madrid and member of the editorial board for the magazine Talía. Revista de estudios teatrales, ITEM. She is a member of the Spanish Association of Stage Directors (Asociación de Directores de Escena de España) and sits on the Board of Directors for the International Association of Young Researchers in Theatre Studies (Asociación Internacional de Jóvenes Investigadores en Estudios Teatrales).

Her most recent work as a set designer and costume designer was for La Dama Duende, by Calderón de la Barca, produced by the Ugala Theatre (Estonia) and the stage direction and design for the prologue and auto sacramental La vida es sueño by Calderón de la Barca, a joint production between the Almagro International Classical Theatre Festival and ITEM.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8683-7762