The 2024-2025 Directors Project
Current Fellowship, Residency, Assistantship, and Exchange Recipients
Every season, from over 1,800 applicants worldwide, The Drama League selects exceptional directors to participate in The Directors Project. This suite of Fellowships, Residencies, Assistantships and Exchange Opportunities offers creative opportunities, financial stability, career advancement, and lifelong resources. The current cohort joins over 400 Directors Project alumni who are thriving in Broadway, Hollywood, and various creative industries.
Fellowships
Zoë Adams
Stage Directing Fellow
Bio
ZOĂ ADAMSÂ (she/her)
 ZoĂ« Adams creates theatre to spark imagination and open hearts to the magic of transformation. Her eclectic body of work includes: The Christine Jorgensen Show, Wizard of Oz, The Historical Range of Ursus Americanus, Sister Act, Meltdown: A live-action game about Climate Change, In the Name of Us (Best Short Play at DUAF), The Cherry Orchard, Not Clown, Skin Flick City, Stacked at the National Theatre of Croatia, and the immersive supper club KrÄv. She is the proud recipient of the 2024-2026 Drama League Stage Directing Fellowship. MFA, Directing, Columbia University; SDC Associate. zoecraigadams.com
Irvin Mason, Jr.
Stage Directing Fellow
Bio
IRVIN MASON JR. (he/him)
Irvin is a director, actor, poet, and teaching artist born and raised in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. His work intersects expressive movement, live music, emerging technology, and Afro-Caribbean traditions to breathe new life to physical storytelling. Irvin seeks to direct work that leaves a residue â unapologetic work that dismantles the traditional foundations of theater, and creates space for new voices to tell their own stories. His recent directing credits include: Ain’t Misbehavin (Gallery-Players), Stuck (Chain Theatre), and Pipeline (Gallery-Players). Assistant Directing: Gospel According to Heather (AMAS, dir. Rachel Klein). In 2023, Irvin served as a directing observer to Schele Williams on the Broadway revival of The Wiz. He was the SDCF directing shadow on Little Shop of Horrors (dir. Maggie Burrows) and Rent (dir. Lili-Anne Brown) at the MUNY. He was also the directing observer on Pup! A Chew Story (NAMT).
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Emma Denson
Rose Directing Fellow
Bio
EMMA DENSON (she/her)Â Emma Denson is an Alabama-born, Brooklyn-based director and playwright. She was recently selected as a 2024 member of Directors Lab North. In September 2023, she directed a staged reading of the new musical Runaway Home, starring Melissa Gilbert, Michael Park, and Abigail Breslin. She was a 2023 Berkeley Rep Ground Floor Artist, where she worked with LeAnne Howe and Colm Summers on The Keening (Co-Deviser/Associate Director). Emma won Best Short at Downtown Urban Arts Festival 2023 for her play, Otis and Anna, which she wrote and directed. She directed a reading of the bilingual Ukrainian play, Hunger (which she co-adapted with Maria Rewakowicz) at Irish Arts Center for Origin Theatre Companyâs 1st Irish Festival 2023, and a second reading took place at the Ukrainian Museum. She was a director-in-residence at her alma mater, Mississippi State University. Emma is the Associate Director at Origin Theatre Company and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. Select credits: Phaedra’s Love (Assistant Director, Columbia University), I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Director, Stagedoor Manor), The Messages (Assistant Director, BRICLab Performing Arts Residency), The Taming of Kate (Director/Deviser, WAXWorks at Triskellion Arts), Emily (Director, The Chain).
Karl Michael Iglesias
FutureNow Directing Fellow
Bio
KARL MICHAEL IGLESIASÂ (he/him/his)
As a Puerto Rican actor, director, writer, and passionate collaborator, Karl Michael Iglesias (He,Him,His) develops new Interdisciplinary Contemporary Performance – exploring verse and how it manifests in movement, the body, the stage, film and in protest. Selected theater credits: The Comedy of Errors (Assistant Director @ The Public), Measure for Measure (Assistant Director @ The Public), Secret Life of Bees (Assistant to the Choreographer @ Atlantic Theater Company). Film credits: HOME/WHERE/IS (Director / Script Editor. Produced by 651 Arts). Selected works in development: Cicada (Lincoln Center), and Ofrenda (as part of The Kennedy Centerâs Office Hours Residency at the REACH). Heâs the former Artistic Advisor for the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives at the UW-Madison and 2022 Creative Director of the Line Breaks Festival. Karl is recognized as a Puerto Rican Cultural Ambassador by Hunter College and a proud Alumnus of the Drama League Directors Project Assistantship.Â
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Britt Berke
FutureNow Directing Fellow
Bio
BRITT BERKEÂ (she/her)Â
Britt Berke is an NYC-based director whose work interrogates love, power, and how these entities are intertwined and revolutionized. Recent projects: the World Premiere of Betty Smithâs Becomes a Woman (Mint Theater Company – Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play); watch me (NYTW Adelphi Residency); DOGS (Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep); Anne Carsonâs Antigonick (Torn Out Theater AKA the âNaked Shakespeareâ company); Liberian Girl in Brooklyn (Mabou Mines); Scenes with Girls (TheaterLab NYC / Hudson Theaters LA); and original concert collaborations with NourishNYC and Arts & Climate Initiative. Recent assisting: The Skin of our Teeth dir. Lileana Blain-Cruz (Tony nom); Mud / Drowning dir. JoAnne Akalaitis (Obie Award). Britt is an alumna of the Roundabout Directors Group, MTC Directing Fellowship, NAMT and SDC Observerships, and Mercury Store Directing Intensive. SDC Associate Member. BA, Barnard College of Columbia University.Â
Stefan Dezil
FutureNow Directing Fellow
Bio
STEFAN DEZIL (he/him)
Born and raised in NY and FL, Stefan Dezil is a bilingual American theater director, filmmaker, and illustrator of Haitian descent. He has worked with Disney, 20th Digital, SpringHill Company, VICE, RevoltTv, Noisey, and Soundcloud. His sci-fi short about American water crises, THIRST, is currently streaming on HULU. For his film The Treadmill, he was nominated for the prestigious international Lumen Prize in the Moving Image category. He also executive produced the narrative feature drama film To Live and Die and Live, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. His work has been showcased at the Hollyshorts Film Festival, American Black Film Festival, Phoenix Film Festival, Boston SciFi Film Festival, and the Lebanese International Film Festival. He is repped by Ronin Entertainment across all media. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s Fine Arts program, he studied theater direction and painting.Â
Jess McLeod
TV/Film Directing Fellow
Bio
JESS MCLEODÂ
Jess McLeod specializes in risky new work about America. She is currently Artist-In-Residence at the NYCLU (Creatives Rebuild); Woolly Mammothâs BOLD Resident Director; Lead Curator of Roundaboutâs Refocus Project, and Co-Chair (with Michael Korie) of the DGFâs Musical Theatre Fellows Program. Recent NY credits include 2ST, MTC, Roundabout, Atlantic, Little Island and P73. Regional credits include The Thanksgiving Play, Venus (Steppenwolf); Hang Man, Wolf Play, (The Gift); RADICAL or, are you gonna miss me (IAMA); Thereâs Always the Hudson (Woolly Mammoth); The Chinese Lady (Cincinnati Playhouse); Hype Man (ATL); Pride and Prejudice (Long Wharf); Do You Feel Anger?, Fulfillment Center (A Red Orchid); and Earth To Kenzie (Lyric Opera of Chicago). Jess has developed new work at The Public, The OâNeill, WTF, NAMT, NYSAF and Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep. She spent three years as Resident Director of Hamilton Chicago and is under commission at La Jolla Playhouse. MFA, Northwestern. 1st Gen Korean-Filipina-Scottish American.Â
Danny Sharron
TV/Film Directing Fellow
Bio
DANNY SHARRONÂ (he/him)Â
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Danny Sharron is a theater director with a focus on developing new plays and musicals, dedicated to elevating the stories of the LGBTQ+ and MENA communities. Over the past fifteen years, he has developed and directed work with The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Woolly Mammoth, Ars Nova, LAByrinth Theater Company, Primary Stages, Ma-Yi, and New York Stage and Film. Danny was most recently a Next Stage Directing Resident with The Drama League. He is also a recipient of New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, Williamstown’s Bill Foeller Fellowship, and The Drama League’s New York Fellowship. For five years, Danny was the Senior Associate Director on Dear Evan Hansen (Tony Award for Best Musical), overseeing four companies: Broadway, West End, Toronto, and the U.S. National Tour. He is currently the US Associate Director on the upcoming Broadway revival of Cabaret.
Lauren Keating
TV/Film Directing Fellow
Bio
LAUREN KEATING (she/her) Lauren Keating is a director committed to engaging audiences in imaginative, personal explorations of complex and urgent questions, with queer characters and stories at the center. Keating made her off-Broadway debut to NYT acclaim with Josh Koenigsbergâs Alâs Business Cards. Her work for screens includes âThe Feminist Cooking Show,â which trended on Stareable, and Power Out, a Most Selected Short on Film Freeway. Keating has developed work with many organizations, including the Public Theater, Playwrightsâ Center, Ars Nova, Dixon Place, Cleveland Play House and the Guthrie Theater. New work collaborators include writers Dipika Guha, Sarah Burgess, L.M. Feldman and Micheal Mitnick. Her own adaptations of classic works include Wedekindâs Lulu, Ionescoâs Rhinoceros, and Shakespeareâs Hamlet and Comedy of Errors. She has been honored with fellowships from the Mellon Foundation/TCG, Time Warner Foundation and the Drama League. She resides on the East Coast with her wife and daughter.
Morgan Green
TV/Film Directing Fellow
Bio
MORGAN GREENÂ (she/her)
Morgan Green is a director of plays, films, radio, and dinnertime. She is currently a Co-Artistic Director at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia where she recently premiered the Pulitzer Prize winning Fat Ham by James Ijames, Eternal Life Part 1 by Nathan Alan Davis, and School Pictures by Milo Cramer which went on to Playwrights Horizons in New York and lauded as best production of the 2023 in Vulture/ NY Magazine. She was a co-founder of the award-winning theater company, New Saloon, best known for Minor Character: Six Translations of Uncle Vanya at the Same Time (The Invisible Dog, The Public Theater, Sharon Playhouse). Other credits include: Staff Meal by Abe Koogler (Playwrights Horizons), The Music Man (The Sharon Playhouse), The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe (Marin Theatre Company), and Cute Activist by Milo Cramer (The Bushwick Starr). Her short film One More Time With Feeling premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London October 2023. Morgan has developed new work at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Bric, Baryshnikov Art Center, Mabou Mines, and Mercury Store. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and proud member of SDC. MorganClaireGreen.com
Assistantships
Rosalind Bevan
Irene Gandy Assistant Director
Bio
ROSALIND BEVANÂ (she/her/hers)Â
Rosalind Bevan is a director, producer, and casting director now based in Los Angeles after 8 years in Boston. Her directing credits include STEW at Gloucester Stage; NO CHILDâŠ, AND THEN WE BAKED BREAD, and TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 at Newton Theatre Company; ECHOES and THE 54TH IN ’22, two short audio plays at The Huntington. And MARCUS; OR THE SECRET OF SWEET, THE MOORS, and PROOF at Boston University. She associate directed ARROWHEAD at IAMA Theatre Company and is associate director of TINY FATHER at the Geffen Playhouse. Rosalind has also led workshops on audition technique and professional theatre at various colleges and universities including Boston Conservatory, Northeastern University, Emerson College, Tufts University, and Wabash College. Rosalind holds a BFA in Theatre Arts Design & Production with an Emphasis in Directing from Boston University.
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Devin Haqq
Irene Gandy Assistant Director
Bio
DEVIN HAQQÂ (he/him)Â
Devin E. Haqq is an Emmy nominated producer, a member of the Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 4, a member of the Fiasco Theatre Acting Company, an IFP alumni, and a Finalist for the 2020 HBOAccess Directing Fellowship. His feature film, Ambitionâs Debt, won the 2017 Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the prestigious American Black Film Festival (ABFF) and the 2018 Paul Robeson Award-Honorable Mention at the Newark Black Film Festival. He made his stage directorial debut in 2020 with a much celebrated production of the critically acclaimed Pass Over by Antionette Nwandu at Luna Stage in West Orange, NJ. Devin has directed workshops and staffed as an associate director on productions for such organizations as The Public Theatre, The Roundabout Theatre Company, The Folger, Shakespeare’s Globe, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Fiasco, and the National Black Theatre.
Karl Michael Iglesias
Irene Gandy Assistant Director
Bio
KARL MICHAEL IGLESIASÂ (he/him/his)
As a Puerto Rican actor, director, writer, and passionate collaborator, Karl Michael Iglesias (He,Him,His) develops new Interdisciplinary Contemporary Performance – exploring verse and how it manifests in movement, the body, the stage, film and in protest. Selected theater credits: The Comedy of Errors (Assistant Director @ The Public), Measure for Measure (Assistant Director @ The Public), Secret Life of Bees (Assistant to the Choreographer @ Atlantic Theater Company). Film credits: HOME/WHERE/IS (Director / Script Editor. Produced by 651 Arts). Selected works in development: Cicada (Lincoln Center), and Ofrenda (as part of The Kennedy Centerâs Office Hours Residency at the REACH). Heâs the former Artistic Advisor for the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives at the UW-Madison and 2022 Creative Director of the Line Breaks Festival. Karl is recognized as a Puerto Rican Cultural Ambassador by Hunter College and a proud Alumnus of the Drama League Directors Project Assistantship.Â
Martavius Parrish
Irene Gandy Directing Assistantships
Bio
MARTAVIUS PARRISH (he/him) Martavius Parrish is a New York City-based Broadway Director, Performer, Teaching Artist, & Creative Entrepreneur. As a Director, heâs currently mounting Lynn Nottageâs Fabulation or,The Re-Education of Undine at the historic Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn. He was most recently the Associate Director for Once Upon A Mattress at New York City Center and Resident Associate Director for the Limited Engagement Tour of Into The Woods. Mentoring under Tony-nominated & Drama League & Obie Award-winning Director Lear deBessonet, he was the Assistant Director of the showâs New York City Center & Broadway runs. The production received 6 Tony Award nominations, including Best Revival & Best Direction of a Musical. Other select Directing credits include workshops of Disneyâs Hercules & Oliver! at NYCC. Martaviusâ direction focuses on revitalization of classic works, with an emphasis on community engagement, accessibility, & transformative inquiry through the lens of perspectives historically targeted by oppression.
Residencies
Sarah Hughes
Beatrice Terry Director in Residence
Bio
SARAH HUGHESÂ Â
Sarah Hughes is a director of new plays, radical adaptations, and devised projects. Her work embraces limitation, values accidental discoveries, and is deeply collaborative, resulting in heightened, shared experiences that prioritize true feeling over the effect of reality.
Recent collaborators include Renae Simone Jarrett, Julia May Jonas, MJ Kaufman, Julia Izumi, Sarah Todes, Vanessa Garcia, Eliza Bent, Zarina Shea, Pablo Helguera, McFeely Sam Goodman, and Eli Nixon, among others. Her work has been presented throughout NYC with LCT3, Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, New Georges, The Bushwick Starr, The Brick, Abrons Arts Center, BAM Next Wave, New Ohio, Japan Society, Superhero Clubhouse, The Tank, and more.
As a creative producer Sarah has developed live performances with Sibyl Kempson, Target Margin Theater, the Office for Creative Research, MoMA, and Half Straddle. With Graham Sack, Geoff Sobelle and Sensorium sheâs created Virtual & Augmented Reality pieces and immersive installations for Tribeca Film Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, The New York Times, and Penguin Random House.Â
Sarah is an Associated Artist of New Georges and Target Margin Theater, a longtime company member of Elevator Repair Service, and has taught at Dartmouth College, Purchase College, and NYU. As Director of Artistic Programming at Theatre Row, she created the Kitchen Sink Residency, a new work development program for emerging performance companies. SDCF Barbara Whitman Award Finalist, Mercury Store Lead Artist, New Georges Audrey Resident and Jam Member, Civilians R&D Lab Member, NACL Deep Space Resident, Drama League Resident, NNPN/OâNeill National Directors Fellow, WP Theater Directing Lab Member, Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow. Sarah lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner and toddler.
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Colm Summers
Next Stage Directors in Residence
Bio
COLM SUMMERS (he/him)Â
Colm is a director and writer from Waterford, Ireland, based in New York and Dublin.
Selected credits include: Every Brilliant Thing (Geffen Playhouse, Best Theater of 2023, Theaterly), We Met on a Dance Floor (Abbey Theatre), La Clemenza di Tito (Grand Théatre de Geneve).
Colm has worked with The Wooster Group, the feath3r theory, Milo Rau, and Pan Pan.
Read Colmâs essays in Ătudes, Blast at 100 (Brill) and in Charles Macklin and the Theatres of London (Liverpool University Press).
Colm was a Resident Director at the Abbey, National Theater of Ireland, and the first ever Director-in-Residence at The Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles.
He is a winner of the Next Generation Award, from the Irish Arts Council. He was a Resident Performing Artist at BRIClab, Brooklyn. He is a Berkeley Rep Ground Floor alum, Dublin Fringe Radical Spirit Award Nominee, Dublin Theatre Festival Next Stage alum, and Pan Pan International Mentorship mentee.
He is the Artistic Director of Working Theater in New York City. His direction of Every Brilliant Thing was featured in Theaterlyâs Best of 2023. He is a Tyrone Guthrie Center Resident and Garter Lane, Waterford, Resident in 2024. His short film, We Met on a Dance Floor, by Inua Ellams, was commissioned by and screened at the Abbey, National Theater of Ireland.
He has written two plays, The Messages (supported by BRIClab), and Falls (supported by Fishamble, Irish Arts Council, and Garter Lane).
Dina Vovsi
Next Stage Special Residency
Bio
DINA VOVSI (she/her)Â
Dina Vovsi is a member of the 2022-2024 WP Theater Directorsâ Lab and The New Georges Jam, and was a 2023 Brooklyn Arts Council Grantee and Puffin Foundation Grantee for RIVER WATCHERS, a site-specific, journey-based play on a 14-seat Langley canoe in Newtown Creek. New work with The Civilians, New Georges, Working Theater, Cape Cod Theatre Project, The Orchard Project, The Bushwick Starr, and more. New Georges Affiliated Artist, alumna of Roundabout Directors Group, Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA Grantee, Brooklyn Arts Council Grantee for the collaborative soundwalk EXITS, Robert Moss Directing Fellow at Playwrights Horizons, The Civiliansâ R&D Group, SDCF Observership at HVSF, a member of the Lincoln Center Directorsâ Lab. Directing faculty, Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYUâs Tisch School of the Arts.
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Film Fund Recipients
Arin Arbus
Recipient
Bio
ARIN ARBUS (she/her)Â
Arin Arbus made her Broadway debut directing Terence McNallyâs Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Tony nom. for Best Revival) starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon. Arbus won an Obie for her production of The Skin of Our Teeth. Sheâs directed twelve productions at Theater for a New Audience, most recently Denis Johnsonâs Des Moines and Waiting for Godot. Sheâs also directed for Clubbed Thumb, Canadian Opera Company, Houston Grand Opera, Chicago Lyric, Shakespeare Theater of DC, Woodbourne Correctional Facility in association with Rehabilitation Through the Arts, and at Ristona Refugee Camp for The Campfire Project. She was a Princess Grace Award recipient, a Drama League Fellow and a member of Soho Repâs Writer/Director Lab.Â
Jaime Castaneda
Recipient
Bio
JAMIE CASTAĂEDA (he/him)
Poor Yella Rednecks & Vietgone by Qui Nguyen (American Conservatory Theater), The Luckiest by Melissa Ross, Seize the King by Will Power, At the Old Place by Rachel Bonds, Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph (La Jolla Playhouse), The Canadians by Adam Bock (South Coast Repertory), Chimichangas and Zoloft by Fernanda Coppel (Atlantic Theater Company), The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz (Dallas Theater Center), The Royale by Marco Ramirez (American Theater Company), The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis (Kitchen Dog), Tiger Style! by Mike Lew (OâNeill), Welcome to Arroyoâs by Kristoffer Diaz (Old Globe), Red Light Winter by Adam Rapp (Perseverance Theatre). His first short film Alejandro premiered at the New York Latino Film Festival. Jaimeâs second short film was produced by Film Independent through Project Involve. Drama League fellow, Princess Grace Award, MFA University of Texas at Austin.
Desdemona Chiang
Recipient
Bio
DESDEMONA CHIANG (she/her) Desdemona Chiang (Director, she/her) is a Taiwan-born American director and writer based in Seattle, WA and Ashland, OR. She has over 20 years of experience directing in the American regional theatre and writes stories about unique intergenerational immigrant experiences. Her TV pilot MADE IN USA was developed with the Sundance Episodic Program, The Orchard Project, The Writers Lab, and was a winner of the WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Lab. Her TV pilot ZHIZHA! was developed as part of Film Independentâs Episodic Lab (sponsored by Netflix) in February 2024. Desdemona is also part of the inaugural cohort of the Sundance Institute Asian American Fellowship and the AFI DWW+ class of 2024, where she wrote and directed a short film adaptation of MADE IN USA (CAPE Julia Gouw Award Honorable Mention). MFA Directing: University of Washington.
International Directors Exchange
Maksima Boeva (Bulgaria) | Natalie Ester (Romania) | Dima Levitskiy (Ukraine) | Stefan Prohorov (Bulgaria) | Lisa Rothe (United States) | Anna Smolar (Poland) | Mei Ann Teo (United States)