(Translator) is professor of theatre at the Arizona State University. For ten years she was resident dramaturg at the Yale Repertory Theatre, where she also directed, and a professor of dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at the Yale School of Drama. She was an early member of the Women’s Project. In addition to Jackie, Honegger has translated Elfriede Jelinek’s recent performance texts Rechnitz and The Merchant’s Contracts, which will be published in the spring 2013 by Seagull Press, Totenauberg (Death/Valley/Mountain), Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Currently, she is finishing her translation of Jelinek’s opus magnum, the 666 page novel “The Children of the Dead” and a biography of Helene Weigel: “Frau Brecht,” for which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of the biography “Thomas Bernhard: The Making of an Austrian” and the translator of plays by Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Marieluise Fleisser Elias Canetti, among others.
(Director) is an alumna of the WP Lab and previously directed Saviana Stanescu’s Aliens With Extraordinary Skills at Women’s Project. Recent work includes: Man Of La Mancha (Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh), Lidless by Frances Ya –Chu Cowhig (Walkerspace, Page 73,NYC), Waking Up by Cori Thomas (EST, NYC); Anonymous by Naomi Iizuka (Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque); The Marriage Of Maria Braun by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (ZKM, Croatia); Binibon by Jack Womack and Elliot Sharp (The Kitchen, NYC); and Events with Life’s Leftovers by Alberto Villarreal Diaz (Dramafest, Mexico City). She directed the world premiere of The Brothers Size by Tarell McCraney at The Public Theater, NYC, and later productions at The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC, and The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Ms. Alagic holds a BFA in acting from The Charles University in Prague and an MFA in directing from Yale School of Drama. “Director Tea Alagic, who debuted Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size, knows how to invest even ordinary speech with the force of ritual” – Village Voice. Visit www.TeaAlagic.com.
(Jackie) recently played the title role in Toni Morrison’s play Desdemona directed by Peter Sellars at the Barbican Theatre in London. Other theatre credits include Katori Hall’s Whaddaboodclot!! at Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Little Foxes and Restoration at New York Theatre Workshop, Marie and Bruce at The New Group, Age of Iron and The False Servant at Classic Stage Company, Ten High at EST, and Rough Sketch at 59 East 59. TV and film includes Admission, The Contest, The Avengers, Lucky Days, Photo-Op, Royal Pains, Unforgettable, and three seasons on the Showtime series Brotherhood.
(Scenic Design) At Women’s Project Theater: Sheila Callaghan’s Lascivious Something. Recent Theater: Red Dog Howls (New York Theater Workshop); Habit, by David Levine (PS122/FIAF at Essex Street Market, Luminato Fesitval, Mass MOCA); Our Class, (Wilma Theater); Er nichts als er (zu mit Robert Walser), Jelinek (Meetfactory, Prague); Map of Virtue, 13P @ NYTW; Blue Flower (American Repertory Theater, Elliot Norton Design Award). Telephone (Foundry Theater) Kafeneion (Athens/Epidaurus Festival). Recent Opera: Powder Her Face, by Thomas Ades (New York City Opera at BAM); Phaeton, Saarlandisches Staatstheater, Saarbruecken; Ariadne Auf Naxos, Opera National de Bordeaux; Methusalem Project, Nationaltheater Weimar; Proserpina, Wolfgang Rihm (Spoleto Festival USA) Grants: NEA/TCG Career Design Fellowship; MacDowell Colony Fellowships; Watermill Center Residencies; Ed: MFA NYU Tisch, Visual Arts at Whitney Independent Study Program; BFA Cooper Union. Upcoming: Smokefall, (South Coast Rep); Nikolai and the Others, Mitzi Newhouse, LCT; Somewhere Fun, (Vineyard Theater).
(Costume Design) [Broadway] Wicked (Tony, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk awards and Olivier nom), Annie, Road to Mecca, Spring Awakening (Tony nom), Radio Golf, Lestat (Tony nom), Assassins, Into the Woods (Tony and Drama Desk noms; Hewes Award), Wonderland. [Off Broadway] If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, Jitney, Conversations in Tusculum. [Regional] Manon (LA Opera). [International] Manon (Berlin Staatsoper). [Awards] Obie (Sustained Excellence in Design), Ruth Morley Design Award (League of Professional Theatre Women). [Education] Chair, Department of Design for Stage and Film, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
(Lighting Design) At Women’s Project Theater: How The World Began and Freshwater. As a SITI Company member and has designed lighting for Cafe Variations (Emerson College, Boston), Trojan Women (Getty Villa), American Document (Martha Graham company), Under Construction, WhoDoYouThinkYouAre, Hotel Cassioepia, Death and the Ploughman, bobrauschenbergamerica (Henry Hewes Design Award 2004), War of the Worlds Radio Play. He is currently working on designinglight for Ann Hamilton: The Event of a Thread (Park Avenue Armory). Recently he designedlighting or Death Tax (Actors Theatre Louisville), Dead Man’s Cellphone (Playwright’s Horizon), The Importance of Being Earnest (Arena Stage). As a member of Austin based Rude Mechanicals, he has designed numerous productions including Method Gun, Now Now Oh Now, I’ve Never Been So Happy, How Late It Was How Late, Lipstick Traces, Requium for Tesla, and Matchplay.
(Composer, Sound Design) At Women’s Project Theater: Crooked and Wapato. Recent productions include: Food and Fadwa and Red Dog Howls (New York Theater Workshop), Breath and Imagination (Hartford Stage), Katie Roche (Mint), Figaro (Pearl),The Catch (Denver Center, Henry Award), In the Next Room…or the vibrator play (Cleveland Playhouse), Red (Maltz Jupiter, Asolo Rep), En el tiempo de las mariposas (Premios Ace 2012 award, Repertorio Español), and co-composed Murakami’s Windup Bird with Bora Yoon, Edinburgh International Festival. Regional: City Theater (Pittsburgh), Yale Repertory, Williamstown Theater Festival, Dorset Theater Festival, Merrimack Repertory Theatre. Recipient: NEA-TCG Career Development Grant, Meet the Composer, Bessie (2010, Big Dance Theater), Lortel nomination (Mint). Graduate: Harvard, Yale School of Drama.
(Playwright) Recent productions include Collapse – 2011-12 NNPN Rolling World Premiere at Aurora Theater (Berkeley), Curious Theater (Denver) and Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas), with additional productions at Theater B (Sacramento), Third Rail Rep (Portland, OR) and Know Theater (Cincinnati). Other work includes The End – “Apocalypse Apartments” (2011 Humana Festival Anthology Project), My Antonia (Illusion Theater, adapted from the Willa Cather novel), Slasher (2009 Humana Festival), End Times (Kitchen Dog Theater), American Klepto (Illusion Theater), Split (Guthrie Theater commission), Hazard County (2005 Humana Festival), Urgent Fury (Cherry Lane Mentor Project) and Eighteen (O’Neill Playwrights Conference). Allison is the recipient of two Jerome Fellowships, two McKnight Advancement Grants and the Bust Artist Fellowship. She holds a BFA from Southern Methodist University and an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. She is a company member of Kitchen Dog Theater, and a member of the WGA.
(Director) Upcoming: Workshop of new musical Her Lightness by David Nugent (Yale Rep); Rolin Jones’ The Jammer (Atlantic Theater Company); Allison Moore’s Collapse (Women’s Project); Bess Wohl’s Barcelona (People’s Light). Recent credits: As You Like It (Chautauqua Theater Company); 3C by David Adjmi (Rattlestick/Rising Phoenix/piece by piece); A Little Journey, 2012 Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Play (The Mint); Red (Alley Theatre); Fallow by Ken Lin (People’s Light and Ojai Playwrights Conference). Currently producing the new musical First Lady of Christmas by Cheri Magid (Book/ Lyrics) with music by Evan Palazzo of The Hot Sardines (http://vimeo.com/33028083); August: Osage County by Tracy Letts and Kenneth Lin’s Intelligence-Slave (Alley Theatre); Sam Mark’s Light Years to the Delling Shore (2011 Sundance Theater Institute at Banff, Canada); David Adjmi’s 3C for Superlab (Playwrights Horizons/ Clubbed Thumb); Punk Princess at NYMF (book/lyrics Yasmine Lever/ music Stew and Heidi Rodewald); Lucy Thurber’s Scarcity (Atlantic Theater Company), where she previously directed Kia Corthron’s Master Disaster and Rolin Jones’ The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Pulitzer Prize finalist); Yale Drama Series presentation of Shannon Murdoch’s New Light Shine (Yale Rep); The Danger of Bleeding Brown by Enrique Urueta (Latino Mix-Fest Atlantic Theater); And When We Awoke There Was Light and Light by Laura Jacqmin (Cape Cod Theater Project); Lisa Dillman’s American Wee-Pie (PlayPenn); Jason Grote’s Box Americana (Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference); Len, Asleep in Vinyl, by Carly Mensch (Second Stage/Juilliard); 10 things to do before I die, by Zakiyyah Alexander (Second Stage Uptown); Collaboration with lighting designer Jennifer Tipton on The Glass Menagerie for the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process; Best Production Connecticut Critic’s Award The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at Yale Rep. Jackson is on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College and Primary Stages ESPA School of Theater. She is the recipient of the Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship at Manhattan Theatre Club, the Williamstown Theater Festival Directing Fellowship and the Drama League’s New Directors/New Works Fellowship. University of the Arts Silver Star Distinguished Alumni Award. BFA Acting University of the Arts. MFA Directing Yale School of Drama. Jackson is from Sugar Land, Texas.
(Susan) Broadway: The Farnsworth Invention (by Aaron Sorkin, dir. Des McAnuff), Doubt, Metamorphoses. Off-Broadway: most recently, The Netflix Plays (Ars Nova). Wildflower (Second Stage); Julius Caesar (The Public Theater, NYSF); Dog and Wolf (59 E. 59th St.); Romania, Kiss Me! (Play Co.); Eyes of the Heart (NAATCO); Tempest Tossed (a 3-person Tempest, Continuum Company), In Your Shoes (original solo show, NYC Fringe Festival). Regional: Sundance Theatre Lab @ Banff, Circle Mirror Transformation (Huntington Theatre Company); Tartuffe (Westport Playhouse), Crimes of the Heart (Open Fist-LA; Scenie Award “Best Actress in a Comedy”); Boston Marriage, Blood Wedding (Guthrie Theater); Tartuffe (La Jolla Playhouse); Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, Othello (Elm Shakespeare). Film/TV: Non-Stop, Little Ones; “NCIS,” every incarnation of “Law & Order,” “The Young and the Restless,” “As The World Turns,” B.A: Dartmouth College Sociology/French. M.F.A: NYU’s Graduate Acting Program.www.nadiabowers.com
(Hannah) Broadway: A Man for All Seasons (Roundabout). Off-Broadway: 3C (Rattlestick), Compulsion (The Public Theater), Zero Hour (13P),
Pumpgirl (Manhattan Theatre Club), Jane Eyre (The Acting Company), Millicent Scowlworthy (SPF), Gentleman Caller (Clubbed Thumb), Mark Smith (13P). REGIONAL/
INTERNATIONAL: World premieres of Marie Antoinette (ART and Yale Repertory Theater), Compulsion (Yale Repertory Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theater; BACCA nom), and Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Three Sisters (Cincinnati Playhouse); As You Like It (Continuum Company, Florence); world premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Berkeley Rep; BACCA nom); Sedition and Mary’s Wedding (Westport Country Playhouse). TV/INTERACTIVE: Law & Order: CI, Homefront, Grand Theft Auto. Training: MFA, NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting. Recent recipient of the Annenberg Fellowship for the Arts.
(Ted) Off-Wild With Happy as Mo’/Elder Bovane (The Public Theatre / Sundance Theatre Lab); Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom as Levee (Baltimore Centerstage& Philadelphia Theatre Company); Marcus Or the Secret of Sweet (City Theatre of Pittsburgh); The Piano Lesson as Lymon (Hayworth Theatre, Los Angeles). Television: 24 (Fox) and Guiding Light (CBS). Training: MFA, Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts and BA, Morehouse College.
(David) NY credits include War Horse (Lincoln Center Theater); After the Revolution (Playwrights Horizons); The Age of Iron(CSC); Coraline (MCC); The Brothers Size (The Public); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (NYSF); Jump (Under the Radar – The Public). Regionally he has worked at Williamstown, The Huntington, The Studio, Yale Rep, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Theatre Company. His Film and Television credits include The Rebound, Two Lovers, “Mercy,” “Law & Order,” “The Beautiful Life,” “The Return of Jezebel James.” Elliot is a graduate of Vassar College (AB) and the Yale School of Drama (MFA) where he was the recipient of The Oliver Thorndike Acting Award.
(Scenic Design). His New York credits include Rx (Primary Stages); All-American (LCT3); The Dream of the Burning Boy and Ordinary Days (Roundabout Underground); Oohrah! (Atlantic Theater Company); The Bereaved ( Partial Comfort); punkplay (Clubbed Thumb) and End Days ( EST). His work has appeared regionally at the Alliance Theatre, Baltimore Centerstage, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, Cleveland Play House, Dallas Theater Center, George Street Playhouse, Glimmerglass Festival, Guthrie Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, The Old Globe, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Two River Theater, Westport Country Playhouse, Wilma Theater and Yale Repertory Theatre. Mr. Savage’s awards include a Helen Hayes Award for Much Ado About Nothing, a Helen Hayes Award nomination for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III and a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. He is a member of Wingspace Theatrical Design, holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale School of Drama, where he is currently on the faculty.
(Costume Design) a native of Romania, has designed for major theater, opera and dance companies including The National Theater of Bucharest and was involved in different international theater festivals such as the Quadrennial Scenography Show in Prague. Oana is part of the first Romanian theater design catalogue, Scenografica. Since 1999, when she moved to New York , her collaborations in theater, opera, film and dance include Robert Woodruff, Richard Foreman, Maya Beiser, Richard Schechner, Andrei Serban, Blanka Zizka, Brian Kulick, Zelda Fichlander, Annie-B Parson &Paul Lazar , Jackson Gay Razvan Dinca, Karin Coonrod, Jay Scheib, Kristin Marting, Evan Ziporyn, Eduardo Machado,Gus Solomon Jr.&Paradigm, Carmen De Lavallade, Jackson Gay,Dusan Tynek,Rebecca Taichman,Rania Ajami,Gisela Cardenas, Tony Speciale, Pavol Liska& Kelly Copper, Matthew Neenan,Molissa Fenley, Zishan Ugurlu, Michael Sexton,Michael Barakiva, Pig Iron Company, Play Company, Charles Moulton, Ripe Time, among others. MFA in Design from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. Princess Grace Recipient, NEA/TCG Career Development Program. Barrymore Award. www.oanabotez.com
(Lighting Designer) New York credits include The Public Theater, MCC, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Atlantic Theater, The Play Company, Ma-Yi, The LAByrinth Theatre, Intar, The Mint, and others. Regional credits include South Coast Repertory, The Long Wharf Theater, The Alley, The Huntington Theatre Company, The Children’s Theatre Company, Centerstage, A.C.T., Hartford Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, George Street Playhouse, Theatre Latte Da, and others. He has a B.A. from Macalester College and an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama. Paul has taught at Cal Poly Pomona and Amherst College, and is currently a Lighting Designer/Theatre Consultant for Schuler Shook. www.paulwhitakerdesigns.com
(Sound Design) For Women’s Project Theater: Birdy, Jump/Cut, Broadway: Picnic, Wit, Other Desert Cities, Good People, The Constant Wife, The Good Body, Bill Maher: Victory… Off-Broadway includes Lincoln Center, MTC, Atlantic, Vineyard, MCC, Playwrights Horizons, The Public, Second Stage, NYTW, WP, New Georges, Flea, Cherry Lane, Signature, Clubbed Thumb (Affiliate Artist), Penguin Rep. Regional: Bay Street, La Jolla, Cincinnati Playhouse, Westport Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, Portland Stage, Long Wharf, The Alley, NYS&F, Humana, Williamstown, ATF. Radio: Studio 360, Naked Radio. Nominations: Drama Desk, Henry Hewes. Awards; Ruth Morley Design Award, 2011 Obie for Sustained Excellence. Adjunct Professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Love to Adam.
(Playwright) is an NYC-based playwright. Her full-length plays include Julius by Design (Fulcrum Theater), Etched in Skin on a Sunlit Night (InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia), AliceGraceAnon (New Georges), Holly Down in Heaven (Forum Theatre in DC), Spookwater, Listen for the Light, Electric Persephone in the Scorpion’s Den, and Wild Black-Eye Susans. Awards: Boomerang Fund for Artists Grant, The Vineyard Theatre’s 3rd Annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Princess Grace Award, two NEA grants, the Helen Merrill Award, Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize (three-time recipient), the Theodore Ward Prize, the New Professional Theatre Writers Award, two MacDowell fellowships, residencies at Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), the Millay Colony, and Ledig House, and Fulcrum Theater (a company Kara helped launch with its inaugural production) received a 2013 Obie Grant. Commissions include South Coast Rep, New Georges, InterAct, E.S.T./Sloan, and Naked Angels. Kara is a 2012-2014 Women’s Project Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow. Her work has been produced and/or developed at the African Continuum Theatre (DC), Ars Nova, CenterStage (Baltimore), Electric Pear, E.S.T., Haulbowline Theatre Group (Cork, Ireland), Horizon Theatre (Atlanta), the Kennedy Center, Naked Angels, New Dramatists, New Georges, New York Theatre Workshop, The Orchard Project, Page 73, Penumbra, PlayPenn Conference (2010), The Shalimar, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference (Guest Artist, 2012), South Coast Rep, TheatreWorks (Palo Alto), the Vineyard Theatre, and Voice & Vision. TV: writer for NBC’s Kings (2008-2009). Kara is an instructor at Primary Stages’ Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), served as visiting professor in the MFA & BFA playwriting programs at Ohio University and has guest taught at various institutions including Spalding University and Rutgers. Julliard alumna, New Georges Affiliated Artist, and member of Interstate 73 (2007-2008), the Ars Nova Play Group (2010-2011), ‘Wright On! Playwrights Group (co-founder), Blue Roses Productions, the Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America.
(Playwright) is a playwright with a passion for epic stories, big ideas, and deep comedy. Her most frequent subject is how history is reflected in individual lives — how places, communities, and debates evolve over time. Her plays have been produced or developed at institutions such as London’s National Theatre, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, Budapest’s Quarter6Quarter7 Festival, PS122, Ars Nova, NYC SummerStage, the Great Plains Theater Conference, Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival, New York Stage and Film, and Telluride Theatre, among others. She is the winner of the Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission, the Jewish Plays Project’s OPEN Residency, and the 2013 Founder’s Award from New York Stage and Film. She is a member of the 2012—2013 Ars Nova Play Group. Sarah frequently collaborates with devising ensembles such as Colorado’s Telluride Theatre, Hand2Mouth from Portland, Oregon, and NYC’s The TEAM. She is the collaborating playwright on The TEAM’s Mission Drift, which toured to London’s National Theatre, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and the Perth Festival in 2013, and won the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize, Scotsman Fringe First, and Herald Angel. As a jazz violinist, Sarah has played in groups from New Orleans to Budapest. A proud Oakland native, she currently lives in Brooklyn. MFA: NYU.
(Playwright) An award-winning theatre artist, Virginia Grise is a writer, performer and director. From panzas to prisons, from street theatre to large-scale multimedia performances, from princess to chafa, Virginia writes plays that are set in bars without windows, barrio rooftops, and lesbian bedrooms. Her work has been produced, commissioned and developed at the Alliance Theatre, Bihl Haus Arts, Company of Angels, Cornerstone Theatre, Highways Performance Space, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwright’s Center, Pregones Theatre, REDCAT, Victory Gardens and Yale Repertory Theatre. Her play blu was a recipient of the Yale Drama Series Award and was recently published by Yale University Press. Her other published work includes The Panza Monologues (University of Texas Press) and an edited volume of Zapatista communiqués titled Conversations with Don Durito (Autonomedia Press). She is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award in Theatre Directing, the Jerome Fellowship from The Playwrights’ Center and was a finalist for the Kennedy Center’s Latina/o Playwriting Award, Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda Award, and the LARK Play Development Center’s Playwrights of New York (PONY) Award. She has performed both nationally and internationally at venues including the Jose Marti Catedra in Havana, Cuba and the University of Butare in Rwanda, Africa. As an activist she has facilitated organizing efforts among women, immigrant, Chicano, working class and queer youth. Virginia has taught writing for performance at the university level, as a public school teacher, in community centers and in the juvenile correction system. She holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from the California Institute of the Arts.
(Playwright) writes plays that are lyrical, funny and formally inventive. Her plays include THE BETROTHED (Wellfleet Harbour Actors Theatre, Chester Theatre), PASSING (Risk is This Festival, Cutting Ball Theatre) and THE RULES (Superlab workshop Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb, Old Vic New Voices workshop). Her plays have been developed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, WordBRIDGE, New Century Theatre Company, Ars Nova and Tobacco Theatre (UK) among others. Residencies include Ucross Foundation, Djerassi Residents Artists Program and SPACE at Ryder Farm. She is a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Time Warner Fellow at the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and an Affiliated Artist with New Georges. Recent projects include a new play commission from New Georges/Barnard College and a year long commission from the Yale Center for Scientific Teaching. She is currently co-producing Letters from Guantanamo, a series of short plays by playwrights responding to recent events at Guantanamo with New Georges at the Culture Project. She also enjoys sharing playwriting with diverse communities has worked at schools, non profits, theatres and universities. Dipika has a BA from University College London, was a Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard University and graduated from the MFA Playwriting Program at the Yale School of Drama where she studied with Paula Vogel. She is from India and was raised in India and the United Kingdom.
(Playwright) is a playwright born and raised in San Francisco, currently living in New York City.Credits include Ching Chong Chinaman (Pan Asian Rep, Mu Performing Arts, SIS Productions, Top 10 play of the year – East Bay Express, City Pages Minneapolis), Crevice (Impact Theatre), The Hatmaker’s Wife (Playwrights Realm, The Hub Theatre, Moxie Theatre, AlterTheater, PlayPenn), Hookman (Company One workshop), in a word (Hangar Theatre and Williamstown workshops), Samsara (O’Neill Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival), and The Tiger Among Us (MAP Fund grant, Mu Performing Arts). Lauren’s work has also been developed at Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3, The Public Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, Aurora Theatre, East West Players, Kitchen Dog Theatre, the Magic Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, and the Playwrights’ Center. She was a Dramatists Guild fellow, a MacDowell fellow, a MAP Fund grantee, and a member of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group. She has been a finalist for the Jerome Fellowship, the PONY Fellowship, the Princess Grace Award, the Sundance Theatre Lab, and the Wasserstein Prize. Her play Samsara has been a nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. Her work has been published by Samuel French. Lauren is a Time Warner Fellow at the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and a member of the Ma-Yi Theatre Writers Lab. She is also the Shank playwright-in-residence at Second Stage Theatre, the Page One resident playwright at Playwrights Realm, and a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center. She is currently under commission from Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3, Mixed Blood Theatre, and Encore Theatre Company (with support from the Gerbode Foundation). BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD.
(Director) Off-Broadway directing includes the American premieres of Carl Djerassi’s plays Phallacy and Three on a Couch and the world premiere of Monika Bustamante’s Thirst: a spell for Christabel. During the 2012-2013 season, Elena directed Natalia Naman’s new play Lawnpeople at Cherry Lane Theatre, Lucia di Lammermoor for Opera North, and the world premieres of Mac Wellman’s Horrocks (and Toutatis too), which was presented at the New Museum after a workshop at New Dramatists, andWu World Woo, co-produced by Omaha’s BlueBarn Theatre and the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Both Mac Wellman pieces will soon be presented in Boston by Sleeping Weazel and ArtsEmerson.Also upcoming, Bekah Brunstetter’s Be a Good Little Widow at The Wild Project. International productions: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Prague Shakespeare Festival, Czech Republic), world premiere of Li Tong’s The Power (the first English-language play commercially produced in Beijing), world premiere of Jaclyn Villano’s Unanswered, We Ride (Edinburgh Fringe). Other recent productions include:La traviata (New York City Opera, Gilman Opera House at BAM),Jaclyn Villano’s The Company We Keep (Boston Playwright’s Theatre), The Price (Northern Stage), Falstaff (Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM), Latin Lovers (Glimmerglass Opera), Naomi Wallace’s The Fever Chart (Underground Railway Theatre), Titus Andronicus (Austin Shakespeare), Mac Wellman’s Muazzez (Great Plains Theatre Conference), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (SUNY and Geva Theate Center), and the world premiere of Carolyn Wistrand’s Magdalena’s Crossing (Negro Ensemble Company). Elena’s operetta War Music, which she adapted from Christopher Logue’s retelling of the Iliad (performance ensemble Aurea and the FirstWorks Providence Festival) was further presented in NYC and Chicago, and toured New England. Other commissions for directed adaptations: Faust (Aurea), and a tango music-theatre pieceLaberintos (Chekhov Theatre Ensemble). Elena works regularly with Sir Jonathan Miller, most recently as Choreographer and Associate Director for La traviata at Vancouver Opera, and has served on his Broadway King Lear and multiple operas at Lincoln Center, Seattle Opera, BAM and Glimmerglass. Elena is a Drama League Directing Fellow, a New Georges’ Affiliated Artist, and a recipient of the Dr. David Farrar Opera Stage Director Grant. She holds her MFA in Acting from University of Texas/Austin. Website: www.elenaaraoz.com Contact: Quinn M. Corbin, Gersh Agency
(Director) Productions include: F.H.O.D.O.M. (Women Center Stage Festival), Miss Nowhere Diner (Planet Connections Festivity), Frida Liberada (Urban Stages), RIP.TIED (freeFall Theatre, FL), When the Water Breaks (YouthInk! Festival at McCarter Theatre, NJ), Jesse (Ensemble Studio Theatre and New Federal Theatre), 365 Days/365 Plays (Classical Theatre of Harlem and Public Theater), A Rat’s Mass and Tell It Underwater (Hangar Theatre, NY), Harvest and Moon on a Rainbow Shawl (Ethnic Cultural Theatre, WA), Wine in the Wilderness (Fortress Theatre), How I Learned to Drive, The Oresteia and The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (The City College of New York). Lydia directed readings of Flyin’ West, featuring the legendary Ruby Dee (New Federal Theatre), Heal Me Television, featuring Clarke Peters and Yolonda Ross of HBO’s “Treme” (Southern Rep, LA), Heartless Souls (Soho Think Tank), The Kimono Project (Ma-Yi), Blood Ties (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Destination: Ooh, Aah, Yummy (Liberation Theatre), Saturday Night, Sunday Morning and Strippa (Classical Theatre of Harlem) and also programmed a season of Future Classics, Classical Theatre of Harlem’s monthly reading series of new plays. Other directing projects include Darlin, Why Cry? as part of “Ki Jan Pou’n Geri? (How Do We Heal?)” a benefit for Haiti, and the solo performance shows girls from the goddess womb and MouthPiece: An Authentic American Idol. Lydia is the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of Akadēmeia Theatre. She is a New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellow, Drama League Directing Fellow, TCG New Generations Future Leaders Grantee, an Affiliated Artist with New Georges and as part of Theatre for a New Audience’s American Directors Project, she participated in an invited workshop lead by Peter Brook. She received an MFA in Directing and a Certificate in Arts Management for the Performing Arts both from the University of Washington. Website: lydiafort.com
(Director) is a freelance director based in New York City, where her favorite credits include Al’s Business Cards (At Play), Comedie of Errors (New Lions), EARTHA (NYU), The Confidence Man (Woodeshed Collective)and Measure for Measure (New Lions). Lauren has directed with The Public Theater, Ars Nova, 3LD, Woodshed Collective, New Georges, NYU, Cooper Union, AtPlay, The Players Theater, The Old Vic, The Prospect Theater, Peculiar Works Project, The Space, Vampire Cowboy Battle Ranch, New Lions Productions, The Mint Theater and The Flea Theater. Regional credits include: Translations (Yale University), Fill Our Mouths (Workshop, Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Metamorphoses (Young Actors Studio, The McCarter Theater),The Big Come (The University of New Mexico), Lulu, Learning Russian and Charlotte’s Web (The Hangar Theatre) and Pugilist Specialist and Seagulls (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Lauren has guest directed for Fordham University and is currently a mentor for BFA directing candidates at New York University. Lauren is a Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab member, a New Georges Affiliated Artist and the Old Vic/New Voices Exchange American Director, 2009. Lauren is an NYU/Tisch Alumni and a Drama League Directors Project Summer and New Directors/New Works Fellow. She is currently developing The Harmonious Pimps of Harmony’s Last Show by Daniel Hartley and Adam Lerman, and Fill Our Mouths by Lauren Feldman.
