Director's Statement
A director's responsibility is to hold both the vision and the room. To bring clarity and conviction to the work while making space for the discoveries that come from genuine collaboration. Extraordinary work happens at the meeting point of care and rigor. A rehearsal room should be deeply humane and uncompromisingly demanding, with enough trust to venture into the unknown and enough shared conviction to pursue what we find there. Safety gives artists the freedom to take greater risks, and those risks give the work somewhere new to go. Ambition becomes something greater when it's shared, and collaboration, at its best, makes an artistic vision more daring and precise.
Who gets to make ambitious work, and who gets to lead it, matters. As a trans, queer, and disabled artist, creating spaces where people can bring the fullness of themselves to the work is inseparable from the pursuit of artistic excellence. The room should be as ambitious for its people as it is for the art.
Above all, trust the audience. Give them something to wrestle with, room to imagine, and the freedom to reach their own conclusions. That's what makes it possible to take real artistic risks, to surprise people, unsettle them, and make them laugh when they shouldn't.
I'm not interested in making theatre we already know how to make. If there's nothing impossible about it, I'm not sure why we're doing it. That's where the magic is.
It Couldn’t Get Worse; or, The Margarita Boat Tour Incident
RECOGNITION
Selected Press
(2026)
Edinburgh Festival Fringe | theSpace @ Venue 45
Director · Co-Playwright · Sound Designer
Original queer comedy-horror | World premiere | 50 minutes
Following a disastrous boat tour, a missing woman, and a rapidly worsening storm, a mother and her daughter's fiancée find themselves trapped together in a malfunctioning lighthouse. What begins as an uneasy alliance becomes a darkly funny investigation of grief, faith, family, and the very different ways people make sense of loss.
Developed collaboratively with playwrights Mariah Lee Squires and S.W. Jones, the production brings together live performance and an original soundscape to create a world extending far beyond the lighthouse walls.
WhatsOnStage - Ten of the Most Eye-Catching Edinburgh Festival Fringe Shows of 2026
LouReviews - Interview with Mariah Lee Squires, S.W. Jones, and Riley Gene, July 2026
Selected Audience Response
“I wasn't entirely clear if the show was going to be a comedy, drama, horror/suspense, and the answer is yes.” - Dara McGarry
“It fires from the first few minutes and never lets up.” - ED Takes
“Beautifully engrossing and immersive sound design.” - Ted Williams
SUPERLATIVES: Live!
RECOGNITION
(2026)
Audience Response
Voidspace Live | Manor Arms and Theatre Deli
Director · Lead Devisor
Devised, interactive, improvised TTRPG
An interactive, devised theatrical experience in which the audience becomes part of the story.
Combining live improvisation with tabletop role-playing game mechanics, SUPERLATIVES invites audiences to participate alongside the performers, make choices, and vote through a custom-developed app. The resulting narrative evolves in real time, with the audience actively influencing who becomes the next student body president of Blackwater Academy.
“Enjoyed it. Especially superlatives.” - Wilfred, Voidspace audience member.
“Yes we were in Superlatives too, really enjoyed it! Monster Prom vibes.” - Valentine, Voidspace audience member.
Peter and the Starcatcher
RECOGNITION
(2023)
Awards & Nominations
Reboot Theatre | Theatre Off Jackson | Seattle
Director · Movement Director · Choreographer
2023 BroadwayWorld Awards:
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Best Direction of a Play, Nominee
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Best Play, Nominee
Full-length play with music | Ensemble-based physical theatre
A trans reimagining of the Peter Pan origin story, bringing contemporary identity and culture into a world of pirates, starstuff, and theatrical make-believe.
Using ensemble movement, physical storytelling, and inventive manipulation of the set, the production transforms a single stage into multiple worlds, from a contemporary bedroom to ships at sea and the island of Neverland. Its interpretation places particular emphasis on belonging, gender expression, and the freedom to become who we are.
Selected Critical Response
“Peter and the Starcatcher is rollicking gay fun. The stage direction and lighting is executed with thrilling misdirection that keeps the anticipation alive." - Drama in the Hood
“See it, especially if you enjoy British-inspired humor/acting. Strong, energetic acting and vocal projection." - Shows I've Seen
A Song for the Vanished
(2026)
London Lovecraft Festival | Drayton Arms
Director · Devisor · Sound Designer
Devised show | Festival production
Two strangers, united by grief, attempt to use music to reach the people they've lost. But when their experiment opens a doorway into something unknown, memories begin to unravel, and the audience becomes part of a world that may be listening back.
Blending live sound, audience participation and psychological horror, A Song for the Vanished explores the relationship between music and memory, and what we're willing to surrender for one more moment with someone we've lost.
No Comfort in the Waiting Room
(2024)
The 14/48 Projects | Seattle
Director
World-premiere short play | 48-hour theatre festival
Created as part of 14/48, a rapid-production theatre festival in which original plays are written, rehearsed, designed and premiered within 48 hours.
The production was developed in collaboration with an ensemble and creative team working within the festival's compressed rehearsal and production schedule.
Here Is Not Anywhere
(2024)
The 14/48 Projects | Seattle
Director
World-premiere short play | 48-hour theatre festival
Created as part of 14/48, a rapid-production theatre festival in which original plays are written, rehearsed, designed and premiered within 48 hours.
The production was developed in collaboration with an ensemble and creative team working within the festival's compressed rehearsal and production schedule.
ASSISTANT DIRECTING
Feathers and Teeth
RECOGNITION
(2019)
Selected Critical Response
Washington Ensemble Theatre | Seattle
Assistant Director · Directed by Bobbin Ramsey
"The show practically leaps off the stage to eat the audience." - BroadwayWorld
"It was a great contrast, unique use of multiple levels of staging, and a scene that was ultimately wonderfully twisted." - TeenTix
Full-length play | Dark comedy-horror
A production of Charise Castro Smith's darkly comic horror play, combining domestic conflict, escalating tension, and the grotesque.
She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms
(2021)
Cornish College of the Arts| Seattle
Assistant Director · Directed by Sophie Franco
Live theatrical staging | Professionally filmed production
A fully staged production of Qui Nguyen's fantasy-adventure play, performed onstage and captured by a professional film crew rather than presented through remote performance.
Created for the camera while retaining the physical demands of live theatre, the production brought theatrical staging, ensemble performance, and fantasy storytelling into a professionally filmed format.
NEW WORK DEVELOPMENT & WORKSHOP DIRECTING
THE HOUSE DEVOURS
(2024)
Sound Theatre Company | Seattle
Workshop Director · Playwright
DROOSE IS LOOSE! THE MUSICAL
(2021)
foundry10 | Seattle
Workshop Director · Book Playwright
ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP
Producing Artistic Director | Festival Founder
Founding Artistic Director
Arts Nonprofit Leadership
14/48 London
14/48 is an international theatre festival built around a remarkable challenge: creating 14 original plays in 48 hours.
As Producing Artistic Director, I established the festival's London edition, bringing together performers, playwrights, directors, designers and technicians to develop and premiere new work under extraordinary time constraints.
The inaugural London festival brought together:
64 artists · 38 first-time participants · 14 world-premiere plays · 300+ audience attendees
Participation is free, with meals provided, an open-interest process, and a commitment to making space for artists at different stages of their careers. The festival brings experienced practitioners and newcomers into the same creative process, building new artistic relationships through the shared responsibility of making work together.
14/48 LONDON IMPACT REPORT
Runaway Stage Theatrics
Founded a nonprofit musical theatre company in a rural farming community with limited access to live performance. The goal was simple: bring theatre to a place where people otherwise had to travel to experience it.
The company produced three mainstage musicals and more than a dozen smaller projects throughout the town, creating opportunities for local artists and audiences to participate in theatre within their own community.
The company received a cultural enrichment grant from Facebook in recognition of its contribution to local arts and culture.
Executive Leadership / Cosultant
My work in arts leadership has taken me from managing established theatres to supporting organisations through significant change.
I served for three years as Managing Director of Sound Theatre Company and led the Young Playwrights Programme at ACT Theatre (Union Arts Theatre) in Seattle, supporting the development of emerging writers.
Today, as a consultant with Scandiuzzi Krebs, I work with arts and activist organisations navigating leadership transitions, organisational crises, and long-term sustainability.
Across these roles, the focus remains on building the structures that allow ambitious artistic work and the people making it to thrive.