Johnny Saldana is a professor of theatre at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he supervises theatre education and teacher training. He has conducted workshops on drama in the elementary classroom nationwide, and he received the American Alliance for Theatre & Education's 1989 Creative Drama Award. His exemplary teaching earned him ASU's Burlington Resources Foundation Faculty Achievement Award in 1991, and the ASU College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award in 1995.