Sarah Scafidi Joins Waterwell as Managing Director

Waterwell has announced that Sarah Scafidi has joined the company as Managing Director following an extensive national search.

Sarah Scafidi is a nonprofit leader and theatrical producer who believes in the extraordinary power of the arts to foster human connection and ignite change.

“Sarah has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for innovative strategic thinking that is deeply aligned with Waterwell's legacy of being a nimble, resilient, and forward-thinking company,” said two-time Tony Nominee Arian Moayed, the company's Co-Founder and Board Chair. Lee Sunday Evans, the company's current Artistic Director added, “At a time when so many theaters are going back to the root questions - who are we? what role do we play in our community? - we are thrilled to be welcoming a leader to our team who so clearly values the power of theater to be a life-line, entertainment, and grapple with complicated civic questions all at the same time.”

Bringing over 10 years of experience in regional and small nonprofit theaters, Scafidi recently graduated with an MFA in Theater Management from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. At Yale, Sarah served as the Associate Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theater, the Managing Director of the Yale Cabaret, and as a fellow with Center Theatre Group. She was chair of the logistics committee for the 2023 Yale Philanthropy Conference and a Social Finance and Impact intern for 20 Degrees, an impact-focused financial consulting firm. Sarah spent three years as the Artistic Assistant at Arden Theater Company and has held positions at Round House Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Kitchen Theatre Company, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre.

"I am deeply inspired by Waterwell's commitment to finding innovative ways to marry extraordinary story-telling with civic engagement,” said Scafidi. “The Artist as Citizen practice that's been cultivated over many Waterwell productions and many years of curriculum development in the Waterwell Drama Program is robust and transformative. This organization is beautifully finding new ways to build authentic, reciprocal relationships with audiences and communities - expanding what is possible for theater's role in our world. I am so honored to join Lee and Heather in leading Waterwell during its next chapter of growth and evolution."

Scafidi succeeds Adam J. Frank who, after serving as Waterwell's Managing Director for 4 ½ years, moved to be the new Managing Director at Baltimore Center Stage. Annie Middleton, a celebrated arts leader who previously led Rattlestick Theater and Heartbeat Opera through transformative periods of growth, served as Waterwell's Interim Managing Director from December 2022 until July 1, 2023. Scafidi joins a co-leadership team which includes Lee Sunday Evans as Artistic Director, and Heather Lanza as the Director of Education.

Sarah completed her MFA in Theater Management from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale (DGSD) and her MBA from the Yale School of Management (SOM) in 2023. While at Yale, Sarah served as the Associate Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theater, the Managing Director of the Yale Cabaret, and as a fellow with Center Theatre Group. She was chair of the logistics committee for the 2023 Yale Philanthropy Conference and a Social Finance and Impact intern for 20 Degrees, an impact-focused financial consulting firm. She was also a co-leader of the People of Marginalized Genders affinity group at DGSD and participated in the Social Impact Consulting Club at SOM.

Prior to graduate school, Sarah was the Artistic Assistant at Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. She has held positions at Round House Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Kitchen Theatre Company, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. As a freelance director, Sarah's work has been produced at the Yale Cabaret, the University for the Arts in Philadelphia, Source Festival and Rorschach Theatre in Washington, D.C., and Interrobang Productions in Baltimore, amongst others.

Sarah is a proud alumna of Messiah University, The National Theatre Institute, and the SDCF Observership program.

WATERWELL is a group of artists, producers and educators dedicated to telling engrossing stories that deliberately grapple with complex civic questions in unexpected ways. The company's most recent production was the English-language premiere of 7 Minutes by Tony Award winner Stefano Massini, directed by Mei Ann Teo, hailed as “one of the most electrifying dramas in New York” by TheaterMania.

Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Wire, Modern Love, 24) recently performed in a new work by asylum-seeker Edafe Okporo that Waterwell commissioned and produced as part of the Dignity Not Detention coalition's organizing efforts to pass legislation that would end immigration detention in New York State. That project is an outgrowth of many projects about immigration which include The Flores Exhibits (www.flores-exhibits.org), Se Lo Que Es Pandemia (www.pandemia.nyc) and The Courtroom: a re-enactment of one woman's deportation proceedings which was created by Arian Moayed and Lee Sunday Evans, was named on the New York Times Best Theater of 2019 list and adapted into a feature film by First Look Media.

For the past 12 years, Waterwell has led conservatory-style training for 6th - 12th grade students at the Professional Performing Arts School, a NYC public school in Hell's Kitchen. This program includes 1.5-2 hours of studio instruction during the school day for 200+ students each year, along with after-school productions that tie-in to the curriculum of each grade level.

Arian Moayed, Waterwell's Co-Founder and Board Chair is an Iranian-born actor, writer and director who has been nominated for an Emmy and two Tony Awards.

Arian has been a faculty member at PPAS for over 15 years, helping lead world-class theater education built on the ethos of “Artist as Citizen”.

As a writer/director, Arian created the Emmy-nominated The Accidental Wolf and The Courtroom. His current projects include 28 Mordad, The Great Fire of '33, Grandmaster, a film adaptation of The Man in Red, and an autobiography about his family's escape from Iran.

Notable acting credits: A Doll's House (Amy Herzog, Tony nomination), The Humans (Drama Desk Award), Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Tony nomination), Guards at the Taj (Obie Award), Succession (Emmy nomination), Love Life (NAACP nomination), Spiderman: No Way Home (Marvel), Inventing Anna |Unwin(Netflix), Ms. Marvel, and You Hurt My Feelings (A24).

Lee Sunday Evans, Waterwell's Artistic Director is a two-time Obie Award-winning Director + Choreographer. She most recently directed the acclaimed production of Heather Christian's ORATORIO FOR LIVING THINGS and was just announced as the director of a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of A WRINKLE IN TIME. She is developing a TV project for A24. Notable credits include DANCE NATION by Clare Barron, THE COURTROOM, DETROIT RED by Will Power, SUNDAY by Jack Thorne, IN THE GREEN by Grace McLean, MILLER, MISSISSIPPI by Boo Killebrew, and HOME by Geoff Sobelle.

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