Photo Flash: Meet the Fellows of The Drama League's DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival

The Drama League presents DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of Contemporary Stage directing, now in its 35th year. The festival will include six fully-staged productions, a showcase evening of a new musical, discussion forums, and conversations with notable American directors. DirectorFest will take place at various locations around NYC: New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street), The Drama League Theater Center (32 Avenue of the Americas), LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (31-10 Thompson Avenue, Long Island City), and Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.

The Drama League Directors Project Fellows include Jennifer Chang, Tara Elliott, Kemar Jewel, Seonjae Kim, and Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li. Chosen from over 330 applicants nationwide, these five visionary emerging directors recently completed their year of mentorships, assistantships, training and career development as part of The Drama League Directors Project. The festival will also include the work of Drama League Next Stage Resident Whitney White and Drama League International Exchange Program Artist Boyan Kracholov.

Taking place over four weeks in venues across New York City, the festival's highlights include a reimagined new staging of a Stephen Sondheim's Marry Me A Little; the New York premiere of The Clitorish by Mara Nelson-Greenberg; Drunk Enough To Say I Love You? by Caryl Churchill; First Love by Charles L. Mee; Deathwatch by Jean Genet; the North American premiere of This Is NOT Hamlet, conceived by Bulgarian director Boyan Kracholov; and Whitney White's Three Sisters, The Music, songs from a work-in-progress, adapted and directed by Whitney White

The creative team for DirectorFest 2019 includes Diggle (Set Designer), Sabrina Bianca Guillame (Costume Designer), Lois Gordon(Lighting Designer), Mark Jablonski (Sound Designer), Claire Brady (Props Designer), Brent Shultz (Fight Director), Libby Jensen(Production Manager), Gracie Esmonde (Company Manager), with Travis Lemont Ballenger (Associate Producer), Gabriel Stelian-Shanks(Executive Artistic Director), and Sherri Eden Barber (Program Consultant). The Stage Management team includes Emily Roth (Production Stage Manager/Whitney White's Three Sisters, The Music)) with Melanie Aponte (Deathwatch), Will Chaloner (Drunk Enough To Say I Love You), Tyler Danhaus (Marry Me A Little), Rachel Kaufman (First Love), Peter Nictakis (This is NOT Hamlet), and Yetti Steinman (The Clitorish). Casting for the festival by Harriet Bass, Michael Cassara, Stephen DeAngelis, Alan Filderman, and Cindi Rush.

The festival will also include conversations with two of America's foremost contemporary directors, Lear deBessonet (Good Person of Setzuan)and Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Jitney), as well as A Town-Hall Conversation: The Mid-Career Director.

DIRECTORFEST is made possible thanks to the generosity of our current supporters: Howard Gilman Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, The Riggio Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Leo Shull Foundation for the Arts, and Trust for Mutual Understanding. Subsidized studio space provided by the A.R.T./New York Creative Space Grant, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Special thanks to the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting the Drama League. Drama League programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Photo Credit: Jule Solomon/The Drama League

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