Playwrights Horizons Names Natasha Sinha Associate Artistic Director

Playwrights Horizons today announced Natasha Sinha as its new Associate Artistic Director. Selected after a national search, Sinha, who is currently Director of Artistic Programs at Signature Theatre, will assume the position in January 2021. She will collaborate closely with Playwrights' new Artistic Director, Adam Greenfield, in leading the influential Off-Broadway theater into its second half-century. In addition to playing a central role in curating Playwrights' on-stage work, and to charting its course into the future, Sinha will oversee a broad range of programs including its New Works Lab, which helps playwrights develop their voices and new work at all stages of the writing process; its acclaimed new Soundstage fiction podcast; its vital Resident Company program; and its recently announced Lighthouse Project, an eclectic series that, through performances, installations, and events, aims to stretch the definition of playwriting and how a theater building can be used.

Sinha said, "I can track my love of theater, and my understanding of what it can be and do, through Playwrights Horizons' work over the years, particularly in the last decade: Maple & Vine; Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play; Men on Boats; Familiar; my friend and collaborator Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop; Heroes of the Fourth Turning; and the upcoming Tambo & Bones, to name a few. I'm excited to build at a theater that rings with such powerful history. Moving forward, the American theatrical canon should include an ever-widening range of playwrights and storytelling. To enable that, we must reimagine and hone our practices to better support plays by visionary writers from historically oppressed communities. We need artists' visions to guide us right now, and I'm thrilled to be joining Adam to uplift the storytelling and storytellers that will usher in this next era of theater."

"I'm thrilled to welcome Natasha to Playwrights Horizons as collaborator and co-conspirator at the dawn of my tenure," said Artistic Director Adam Greenfield. "Over the past decade, Natasha has played an integral role in our city's new play ecosystem, consistently nurturing, promoting, and producing the most urgent and adventurous theater. An extraordinary caretaker and advocate for writers and their plays, with a penchant for experimentation and a hunger for community engagement, she's uncannily aligned with our work and values. Throughout the search to fill the role I've exited as Associate Artistic Director, I've been inspired by the energy and ideas Natasha brings to the table, and I feel lucky that we'll get to continue this dialogue every day."

Sinha has dedicated her career as an artist and arts administrator to the development of both new plays and musicals by a diversity of writers. At Signature, she spearheads new artistic programs, including a new holistic residency for early-career playwrights, and serves as artistic line producer for select productions, such as Dave Malloy's Octet, and Lauren Yee's Cambodian Rock Band. From 2012-18, Sinha was Associate Director of LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater, which exclusively produces premieres, including Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, Rude Mechs' Stop Hitting Yourself, Dave Malloy's Preludes, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' War, Bryna Turner's Bull in a China Shop, Third Rail Projects' Ghost Light, Martyna Majok's queens, and Antoinette Nwandu's Pass Over. She kicked off the LCT3 Spotlight Series with SHABASH!, hosted by Danny Pudi and Parvesh Cheena. Sinha was previously the Associate Producer at Barrington Stage Company. In addition to producing and developing new plays, she has worked on new musicals, including projects by Michael R. Jackson, Sukari Jones & Troy Anthony, Grace McLean, Shakina Nayfack, Sam Salmond, and Kit Yan & Melissa Li. She is a co-founder of Beehive Dramaturgy Studio, which works with individual generative artists as well as organizations such as Page 73, Musical Theatre Factory, Astoria Performing Arts Center, and SDC. Sinha is on the Advisory Boards of SPACE on Ryder Farm, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, and Musical Theatre Factory (where she co-moderates MTF's POC Roundtable, exclusively for musical artists of color, and advises on various programs, including MTF MAKERS). She is the recipient of the 2019 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award and has served as a judge on many award committees, taught classes, written articles, led panels, and created events to center a range of exciting new voices from historically oppressed communities.

Sinha said, "For years I've been working at Off-Broadway theaters that are sizable and well-resourced, while freelancing for smaller organizations that can be nimble, flexible, and radical. Playwrights Horizons-its longtime ethos, the new leadership of Adam Greenfield, and its belief in partnerships, collaborations, and community-manages to combine the qualities of both. The pandemic is forcing a long-needed foundational shift in how we approach theater, to make it more equitable and to uproot deep-seated systems of exclusion and misrepresentation. I am proud to be part of an organization committed to modeling that change."

Photo Credit: Tess Mayer

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