Hangar Theatre Announces Michael Barakiva as its New Artistic Director

After a nationwide search, the Hangar Theatre announces the appointment of Michael Barakiva as Artistic Director. His tenure will begin immediately as he transitions from Interim to full-time Artistic Director. Michael will be the Hangar's first full-time, in residence Artistic Director.

As the Interim Artistic Director, Michael directed Third and I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti for the Hangar's 2016 Season, which were both critical and popular successes. Prior to this season, Michael had been a Hangar Directing Fellow in 2001 and a director for the Hangar School Tour in 2003.

Michael comments, "My stint as Interim afforded me the opportunity to get to know and fall in love with the Hangar Theatre and its surrounding community. I am humbled and honored to become the first full-time, in-residence Artistic Director, especially as we expand the year-round artistic programming and reinstate the much-beloved fifth show into our summer season". One of the first responsibilities Michael will have as Artistic Director will be to program the Hangar's Mainstage and KIDDSTUFF seasons: look for an announcement in mid-November for the Hangar's five-play Mainstage season.

The Hangar management and Board of Trustees ar eager to continue their partnership with Barakiva. "I am thrilled that Michael has accepted the position of full-time Artistic Director," says Board President Margaret Shackell. "Many people called, emailed, and pulled me aside to recommend that the board take the 'Interim' label off his title. Personally, I loved this season, and I think Michael had a lot to do with making it both an artistic and financial success. I can't wait to see what happens next!"

Hangar Managing Director Josh Friedman is thrilled to continue collaborating with Barakiva. "I look forward to growing a partnership that will be rewarding for the Hangar and our entire community," Friedman says. "Michael is a great choice for many reasons. He is an artist, a leader, and an educator. His heart is already tied to the Hangar and the Ithaca arts community, and will be a driving force in programming performances and events in an effort to build on the recent successful expanded seasons".

As a director, Michael has worked in New York and across the country developing new plays and staging classics. As a freelance director Michael as worked Off-Broadway and at numerous regional theatres, including Syracuse Stage, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Primary Stages, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Credits include

Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne (Primary Stages), White People by Neil Cuthbert (Ensemble Studio Theater), UP by Bridget Carpenter (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Burn This by Lanford Wilson (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) and The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, Turn of the Screw by Jeffrey Hatcher and Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward (all at Syracuse Stage). He is a graduate of Vassar College and the Juilliard School, where he studied as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Directing.

"Much like a Pokémon reaching its next phase of evolution, assuming the artistic directorship of the Hangar Theatre feels like the culmination of my twenty years in the field," Barakiva comments. "I have been blessed to work in just about every arena of our profession - developing new works, staging classics, mounting musicals; in New York, regionally, and internationally. I look forward to bringing that artistic experience along with my producerial background running a company in New York, as well as producing new plays festivals, to this position."

In addition to shaping programming for the Hangar's summer performance season, which includes both mainstage productions and KIDDSTUFF performances for young audiences, Barakiva will oversee the organization's diverse education programs. He will support Hangar staff in continuing to provide theatre arts training to area fourth graders through the lauded Project 4 program; guide the Hangar's long-time Lab Company program, which offers unique professional training to emerging directors, actors, choreographers, and playwrights; and help to shape other educational opportunities such as school tours, Theatre for Young Audiences, and the Next Generation School of Theatre summer training program. Barakiva will also be responsible for growing the Hangar's year-round artistic programming.

The Hangar began its search earlier this year after the departure of Jen Waldman late in 2015, who had been the theatre's Artistic Director for the previous two seasons. Michael Barakiva has been serving as Interim Artistic Director since December of 2015.

The Hangar Theatre is committed to providing exceptional theatre experiences of high professional quality to enrich, enlighten, educate, and entertain the diverse audience in the Finger Lakes region and beyond. Strong education and training programs are central parts of our commitment to the local and national artistic communities. www.HangarTheatre.org

Michael Barakiva is an Armenian/Israeli-American theater director and writer based in New York City. His first novel, One Man Guy, published by Macmillan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), was ranked the #1 Gay Young Adult novel on Goodreads in 2014, named to the Rainbow List and Family Equality Council's Book Nook and released in Brazil by LeYa. Michael also serves as the Artistic Director of The Upstart Creatures (www.upstartcreatures.com), a theater company dedicated to creating (meta)physical feasts combining theater and food.

As a director, Michael has worked in New York City and across the country developing new plays and staging classics. Off-Broadway credits include

Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne (Primary Stages), White People by Neil Cuthbert and They Float Up by Jacquelyn Reingold (Ensemble Studio Theatre, NYC). Regional credits include UP by Bridget Carpenter (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Burn This by Lanford Wilson (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) and The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, Turn of the Screw by Jeffrey Hatcher and Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward (all at Syracuse Stage).

Workshops/readings include the Roundabout Theater Company, Ars Nova, New Dramatists, NY Stage & Film, New York Theater Workshop, Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference and Playing on Air. Michael has also taught and directed at NYU, Vassar College, Bard College, Syracuse Drama, University of Rochester, U of U at Salt Lake City, National Theatre Institute, Fordham University and UC Davis.

In addition to his novel One Man Guy, Michael received a Sloan Commission to write

The Nature of Things about the Ancient Roman poet Lucretius, and co-wrote String Theory with Amy Boyce Holtcamp and Sarah Braunstein (Connotation Press). He is currently working on Hold My Hand (FSG), a standalone sequel to One Man Guy, as well as The Aether Wild, a post-apocalyptic science-fiction fantasy, with Suzanne Agins and Rosemary Andress.

Michael served as Interim Artistic Director at the Hangar Theatre for the 2016 season, where he directed I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Jacques Lamarre (based on the memoir by Giulia Melucci), and Third by Wend Wasserstein, the original production of which he also directed in a one-act form. When not writing or directing, Michael can be found playing board games and soccer. He is a proud recipient of the 2012 Most Improved Player award from the New York Ramblers, the world's first gay-friendly soccer team.

Michael is a recipient of the David Merrick Prize in Drama, a Drama League Summer Fellowship, a Granada Fellowship at UC Davis and the Phil Killian Fellowship in Directing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He is a graduate of Vassar College and the Juilliard School, where he studied as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Directing.

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