Roundabout Theatre Company Announces Sivan Battat as 2021-2022 Directing Fellow

Roundabout Theatre Company has announced current Roundabout Directors Group member Sivan Battat as the 2021-2022 Directing Fellow. The Roundabout Directing Fellowship was launched in 2017 to create a long-term, meaningful relationship between Roundabout and a young director. Battat is the fifth in the program, following Whitney White (2017), Miranda Haymon (2018), Kathleen Capdesuñer (2019), Cristina Angeles (2020). Battat will begin in 2021 once production has resumed and she will serve as an assistant director on multiple productions, starting with Trouble in Mind.

Applications for the Leon Levy Foundation Roundabout Directors Group - a second program built to provide career assistance to emerging directors - are now open. The Roundabout Directors Group was launched in 2019 as an extension of Roundabout's artistic career and mentorship programs, including the Roundabout Directing Fellowship, the Theatrical Workforce Development Program and Space Jam, a support initiative for playwrights. Applicants for the third cohort should apply before April 1 here: Application Link.

Roundabout's Associate Artistic Director Jill Rafson and Associate Artist Cristina Angeles lead the Directors Group with the mission to create an artistic community for directors at similar stages of their careers. For more information about the Roundabout Directors Group, visit Roundabout Artists in Residence.

Support for the Directors Group and all of Roundabout's Artists in Residence programming is generously provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.

ABOUT SIVAN BATTAT

Sivan Battat (she/they) is an Iraqi-Jewish theatre director, cultural worker, community organizer & educator. Recent directing credits: Who the F is Ahmed, Michael Zalta (Rough Draft Fest, LPAC); She He Me, Raphael Khouri (National Queer Theatre); Coexistence My Ass, Noam Shuster (Harvard University/Tour); Baba Karam, Sanaz Toossi, McArabia, Sevan Kaloustian Greene (Atlantic Middle Eastern Mixfest, readings); Pie Shop Play, Alice Pencavel (Corkscrew Festival); East o', West o'!, Michelle J. Rodriguez (ANTFest, Ars Nova). As an assistant and associate, Sivan has worked with directors including Whitney White, Sam Gold, Rebecca Taichman (School Girls, MCC); Neil Pepe (On the Shore of the Wide World, Atlantic); GT Upchurch (The Half Life of Marie Curie, Audible) and David Muse (King Charles III, ACT, Seattle Rep, STC). As an organizer and cultural worker, Sivan has worked with NYC-based Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) in numerous capacities, organizing Mizrahi & Sephardi Jews and recently artistic coordinating the first ever Mimouna, a celebration of identity & ritual led by members of the Mizrahi/Sephardi Caucus in partnership with the Arab American Association of NY. Sivan has curated several iterations of Salon Al-Mahjar المهجر صالون ,a performance salon for queer & trans MENASA artists and leads ancestral storytelling workshops within queer and Middle Eastern communities.

Sivan is an active 2 community organizer, serves on the board and as an educator with Ammud: the Jews of Color Torah Academy, is a member of Tzedek Lab: a Jewish Justice Lab and the Roundabout Directors' Group. Sivan recently completed the Dorot Fellowship, where they studied Mizrahi Feminisms and Arabic and organized for justice in IsraelPalestine. Sivan creates performance work that leans into multiplicity and resists cultural erasure, that explores the contemporary trauma of displacement across immigrant experiences, asking questions about nostalgia and home. Sivan seeks to bridge justice work and cultural work, bringing the power of performance to our movements, and the vision of movement work to our theaters. BA Wesleyan University. sivanbattat.com

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