Turn To Flesh Productions Names Chris Rivera as New Artistic Director

TURN TO FLESH PRODUCTIONS (TTF) has announced that former Associate Artistic Director Chris Rivera (he/they) has officially stepped into the role of Artistic Director as of August 7. The move follows the transition of former Artistic Director Emily C. A. Snyder (she/they) into the role of Executive Director. Snyder will continue to collaborate closely with Rivera and the company.

"I am incredibly honored to be asked to take the reins of the company Emily C. A. Snyder founded and nurtured, to continue guiding this company, and serving our community of artists," Rivera says.

At Turn To Flesh Productions, Chris Rivera facilitates the Monthly MUSE playwrighting workshop. Rivera also conceived of and facilitated Beyond the Ingenue, a project that created dynamic roles tailor made for female and non-binary AFAB (assigned female at birth) actors who too often found themselves playing underdeveloped roles in theater. TTF has produced readings of Rivera's plays Curse of Cassandra, Our Own Odyssey, Modern Day Martyrdom, and Witch of the Black Forest. Rivera also directed Dear Little Butterface for the 2016 Reading Series and played Laertes in May Violets Spring, Dr. Nanti in The Other Other Woman, Adonis in The Love and Death Trilogy, and Sir Tristan in Table Round. Rivera will be directing Turn to Flesh's film version of Orpheus Was an A-hole later this year.

Rivera's full biography can be found on the TTF website.

The promotion signals a shift in the New York theater scene. Rivera will be one of a very small number of Latiné artistic directors in New York City who are running theaters not specifically geared toward the Latiné community. In their former roles with TTF, Rivera acted as a guide star for equity and inclusion, championing initiatives to include more colorful casts and raising the bar for representation on the TTF stage. They were instrumental in growing the focus of the company from "creating vibrant roles for women" to also creating roles for LGBT+ actors and BIPOC.

Turn To Flesh Productions develops new epic stories in heightened text with vibrant roles for those historically underrepresented in classical art. Using timeless tools such as poetry, verse, and myth, TTF grapples with modern (and even divisive) questions in search of the true, the good, and the beautiful.