Mina Morita Joins Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company as Resident Director and Creative Producer 

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company has announced the appointment of celebrated director and established arts leader, Mina Morita, as its BOLD Resident Director & Creative Producer.  

Supported by a major grant from the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle, this two-year position recognizes Morita’s proven ability to guide groundbreaking theatrical work as well as her dedication to strengthening the theatre field and expanding the possibilities of storytelling on American stages.

 A visionary initiative created to bridge the gaps for women in American Theater, The BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership circle is funded by the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation. 

Morita will be working directly with Artistic Director Maria Manuela Goyanes and Managing Director Kimberly Douglas to support their work with strategic planning, flexible producing models, a long-range sustainability effort, fundraising, and external affairs. Morita will also collaborate with the Core Leadership Team to advance Woolly’s artistic impact, and direct at least one production a year in the season.  

Morita brings almost a decade of leadership experience to Woolly Mammoth. She served as Artistic Director of San Francisco’s Crowded Fire Theater Company (2015–2022), where she built a reputation for producing fearless and complex work. Under her leadership, Crowded Fire grew four-fold, moved to a shared leadership model, and advanced a vital platform of powerful artistic programming. Prior to this, she supported the launch of the Ground Floor, Berkeley Rep’s Center for the Creation and Development of New Work with Madeleine Oldham and Meghan Pressman and led Shotgun Player’s growth to a mid-sized theatre organization as Board President. Morita has worked alongside some of the United States' most acclaimed playwrights and is currently directing Sanaz Toossi’s WISH YOU WERE HERE, which opens in January 2025 at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California. In 2023 she received the inaugural FrontOffice Mid-Career Director’s Award grant of $25,000, was recognized as a Beinecke Fellow with Yale University in 2022, and has worked with Australia’s National Theatre of Parramatta, La Boite Theatre, and several U.S. theatres, including the Guthrie Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In 2015, Mina was honored to share her story on TEDx, and in 2016, she was chosen as one of the YBCA100, for "asking questions and making provocations that will shape the future of culture."  

Mina Morita shares her excitement in moving to DC to join Woolly and our rich theatre community including longtime artistic colleagues Sonia Fernandez, Reggie White, and recent La Mama Umbria mentor Hana Sharif. "Woolly Mammoth is the magnetic center for some of the most daring and transformative work found within the American Theatre. I’m deeply honored by this invitation and can’t wait to join Maria, Kimberly, and the team to continue the vital work of creating dynamic theatre that sits on the edges of the human experience.” 

"Mina and I worked together for a hot second years ago, and I have been pining for more ever since! Mina is a courageous, principled, out-of-the-box creative leader and artist. I'm thrilled that she and Adam have decided to move to this coast so she can lend her immense talent to both Woolly and the BOLD Women’s Leadership Circle. I continue to be so grateful to the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation as well as the indefatigable Carol Dunne for the opportunity to mentor and be mentored by such incredible women. I can't wait to see all Mina accomplishes both onstage and off in this new role, created specifically for her."  Woolly Mammoth Artistic Director Maria Manuela Goyannes

Carol Dunne, Director of the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle and Producing Artistic Director of Northern Stage joins the excitement “We are thrilled to have an artist of Mina Morita’s caliber join the Helen Gurley Brown Bold Circle. Her fierce commitment to theater that changes the world is a gift to everyone in our cohort and we can’t wait to see the impact she brings to Woolly Mammoth.” 

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