Studio Theatre Announces Diverse Directors Slate For 2023-2024 Season

Studio Theatre's next season will feature the talents of six accomplished and exciting directors, artists who will bring unique and compelling perspectives to the stage. First, Christine Quintana's bilingual, character-driven two-woman tour-de-force Espejos: Clean will be directed by Elena Araoz, internationally known for her work in theatre, opera, and immersive events. Fat Ham, James Ijames' delirious, Tony-nominated take on Hamlet, will be directed by Taylor Reynolds, one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of OBIE-award winning The Movement Theatre Company in Harlem. Studio Artistic Director David Muse will direct Mike Bartlett's lacerating generational comedy Love, Love, Love, while distinguished DC actor and rising director Tom Story will helm another romantic comedy, one of queer, millennial love and heartbreak, Bryna Turner's At the Wedding. Studio-commissioned director Sivan Battat will direct the world premiere of Problems Between Sisters, Julia May Jonas' newest work in her series reinterpreting American classics from women's perspectives. And Psalmayene 24, most recently seen just this season leading the world premiere of James Ijames' Good Bones to the stage, will bring a completely new vision to George C. Wolfe's classic The Colored Museum. 

“It's such a pleasure to welcome back so many directors with deep ties to Studio,” said Muse, speaking as Artistic Director. “Sivan Battat, who was a directing apprentice early in my tenure at Studio, and who turned out a nuanced production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning last season; Tom Story, long known to DC audiences as an actor and becoming known as a director of vibrancy and insight; Psalmayene 24, who returns with a passion project of The Colored Museum to close out our season with fellow Studio favorite Natsu Onoda Power as his set designer. All four of these artists are also members of Studio's Cabinet, our affiliate artist program. I am pleased to welcome two directors new to our audiences as well: Elena Araoz, who brings her experience with opera and multi-media performance to the expansive and intimate Espejos: Clean; and Taylor Reynolds, a director who's making quite a name for herself in New York and just received an OBIE for directing earlier this year. She has a real way with actors and designers, and I'm looking forward to her production of Fat Ham.” 

Studio's 2023-2024 season will open September 13 with the first performance of Espejos: Clean. Tickets are now on sale for all shows. 

About the Directors

Elena Araoz creates and directs theater, opera, multi-media performance, and large-scale immersive events. Her credits include Union Square Incident at 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, Original Sound at Cherry Lane Theatre, Madness of Small Worlds at New York Theatre Workshop Next Door, Architecture of Becoming at WP Theater, La traviata at New York City Opera and BAM, Falstaff at Brooklyn Philharmonic, and BAM, Mud and Conduct of Life at Boundless Theatre, Anna in the Tropics at Barrington Stage, The Manic Monologues at McCarter Theatre, Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare Festival St, Louis, El Matrimonio Secreto at Florida Grand Opera, Midsummer Night's Dream at Prague Shakespeare, The Power at Noble Theater Bridge-Beijing, Two Arms and a Noise at Bucharest International, the American national tour of Sugar Skull, and she served as dramaturg for Senator Bill Bradley's show and film Rolling Along. She is Producing Artistic Director of Theater and Music Theater at Princeton University.  

Taylor Reynolds is an OBIE-award-winning director based in New York, originally from Chicago. Select directing credits include Clyde's at Berkeley Repertory Theatre/Huntington Theatre, Tambo & Bones at Playwrights Horizons/Center Theatre Group, Man Cave at Page 73, The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (New York Times Critic's Pick), Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally at Baltimore Center Stage/Playwrights Realm, Plano at Clubbed Thumb (Drama Desk nomination for Best Director), and Think Before You Holla (creator/deviser). Taylor has also worked as a director and collaborator with companies including Keen Company, Ojai Playwrights Conference, MCC Theater, New Georges, Manhattan Theatre Club, and The 24 Hour Plays. She is the 2021 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award recipient, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a 2017-2018 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, and a Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab alum. Taylor has a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.

David Muse is in his fourteenth season as Artistic Director of Studio Theatre, where he has directed Fun Home; People, Places & Things; Cock (the in-person and digital productions); The Children; The Remains; The Effect; The Father; Constellations; Chimerica; Murder Ballad; Belleville; Tribes, The Real Thing; An Iliad; Dirt; Bachelorette; The Habit of Art; Venus in Fur; Circle Mirror Transformation; reasons to be pretty; Blackbird; Frozen; and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. As Studio's Artistic Director, he has produced 110 productions; established Studio R&D, its new work incubator; significantly increased artist compensation; created The Cabinet, an artist advisory board; and overseen Open Studio, a $20M expansion and upgrade of Studio's four-theatre complex. Previously, he was Associate Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he has directed nine productions, including Richard III, Henry V, Coriolanus, and KingCharlesIII (a co-production with American Conservatory Theater and Seattle Rep). Other directing projects include Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at Arena Stage, The Bluest Eye at Theatre Alliance, and Patrick Page's Swansong at the New York Summer Play Festival. He has helped to develop new work at numerous theatres, including New York Theatre Workshop, Geva Theatre Center, Arena Stage, New Dramatists, and The Kennedy Center. David has taught acting and directing at Georgetown, Yale, and the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy of Classical Acting. A nine-time Helen Hayes Award nominee for Outstanding Direction, he is a recipient of the DC Mayor's Arts Award for Outstanding Emerging Artist and The National Theatre Conference Emerging Artist Award. David is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale School of Drama.  

Tom Story is an actor, director and teacher living in Washington DC. He has appeared in over 75 plays in Washington DC, New York, and around the country. He has directed at Studio Theatre, Round House Theatre, The Berkshire Theatre Group, Imagination Stage, Adventure Theatre, and American University. Tom has been nominated for multiple Helen Hayes awards and is a Fox Foundation Fellow, a cabinet member of Studio Theatre, and a graduate of Duke University and the Juilliard School. He studied acting with Michael Kahn and directing with Joy Zinoman.

Sivan Battat is a theatre director & cultural organizer, and Director of New Work Development at Noor Theatre. Sivan began their career here at Studio Theatre as an Artistic Apprentice. Credits include Heroes of the Fourth Turning at Studio Theatre, the world premiere of Layalina at Goodman Theatre, Brass Knuckles at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Coexistence My Ass! at Edinburgh Fringe, Girlfriend at Drama League, and Trouble in Mind (Assistant Director, Broadway). Sivan has developed work with companies including Roundabout Theatre Company, the Park Avenue Armory, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Ars Nova, New Georges, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Long Wharf Theatre, MCC Theater, Mercury Store, and more. Fellowships include Roundabout Directing Fellow, Drama League Directing Fellow, TCG Rising Leaders of Color. Upcoming productions include Wish You Were Here at Yale Repertory Theatre and Backstroke Boys at Fault Line Theatre.

Psalmayene 24 (Director) is an award-winning director, playwright, and actor. Directing credits include Good Bones, Flow and Pass Over at Studio Theatre, Necessary Sacrifices: A Radio Play at Ford's Theatre, Native Son at Mosaic Theater Company, Word Becomes Flesh at Theater Alliance, Cinderella: The Remix at Imagination Stage, and Not Enuf Lifetimes at The Welders. Playwriting credits include Dear Mapel and Les Deux Noirs: Notes on Notes of a Native Son at Mosaic Theater Company, The Frederick Douglass Project co-written with Deirdre Kinahan at Solas Nua, and Zomo the Rabbit: A Hip-Hop Creation Myth at Imagination Stage. His solo play, Free Jujube Brown! is published in the anthology Plays from the Boom Box Galaxy: Theater from the Hip Hop Generation. Acting credits include Ruined at Arena Stage, Free Jujube Brown! at The African Continuum Theatre Company, and HBO's The Wire. He is the writer/director of the short film The Freewheelin' Insurgents. Psalm is the host of Psalm's Salons at Studio, an interview-based cultural series that celebrates theatre and community through a Black lens. He is the recipient of a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play and has received the Imagination Award from Imagination Stage. His work has received grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Walt Disney Corporation. Psalm is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Mosaic Theater Company.

About Studio Theatre 

Studio Theatre is a longstanding Washington cultural institution dedicated to the production of contemporary theatre. Over more than 40 years and 350 productions, the theatre has grown from a company that produced in a single rented theatre to one that owns a multi-venue complex stretching half a city block, but has stayed committed to its core distinguishing characteristics: deliberately intimate spaces; excellence in acting and design; and seasons that feature many of the most significant playwrights of our time. Studio is a values-focused organization that pursues artistry and inclusion, and brings characteristic thoughtfulness and daring to our efforts, onstage and off. The theatre serves nearly 75,000 people each year, including more than 1,000 youth and young adults through community engagement initiatives. Founded in 1978, the quality of Studio's work has been recognized by sustained community support, as well as 78 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in professional theatre. 

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