Wendy C. Goldberg

Last updated
Wendy C. Goldberg
Born1973 (1973)
Farmington Hills, Michigan
NationalityAmerican
Education
OccupationTheatre director
Known forFirst female Artistic Director,
Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's
National Playwrights Conference
Notable workCreative Advisor, Rock of Ages

Wendy C. Goldberg (born 1973) is an American theatre director and the current Artistic Director of the National Playwrights Conference at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Under Goldberg's tenure, The O'Neill was awarded the 2010 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the first play development and education organization to receive this honor. Goldberg is the first woman to run the Playwrights Conference and was named Artistic Director when she was just 31 years old. [1]

Life and career

Goldberg was born in Michigan and her mother was a middle-school English teacher. She spent her youth training to be a professional tennis player, but her athletic career was cut short when she contracted lyme disease in 1989, the summer before her junior year in high school. Though Goldberg still managed to win the state championship that year, she decided to skip tennis camp the following summer, and went instead to an acting conservatory. The experience of the program changed her career focus, and when she went off to the University of Michigan after graduation, she chose to study theatre and comparative literature. After earning a BA, with honors, Goldberg continued her theatre education at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television where she completed an MFA in Directing in 1998. [2]

After receiving her degree, Goldberg served for five seasons as Artistic Associate at Arena Stage in Washington, D. C., where her directing credits include The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? , Proof , Book of Days, and On the Jump. She led "Downstairs in the Old Vat Room," Arena's artistic initiative dedicated to the development of new American plays, since its inception. Other than the theater's founder, Zelda Fichandler, she is the youngest associate to have directed for the company in its 50-year history, making her main stage debut at the age of 26 with the company's revival of K2 in celebration of the company's 50th anniversary. [2]

Goldberg has also directed in various new play development programs across the country, including work with New York Stage and Film, New Dramatists, The Women's Project, Arielle Tepper Productions, Hartford Stage, The Mark Taper Forum, Portland Center Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and over 30 readings and workshops for Arena Stage. [1]

At The O'Neill, Goldberg has developed more than forty projects for the stage and many have gone on to great acclaim in New York and around the country. Included in that group is the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Winner (Julia Cho's The Language Archive), two American Theatre Critics Association Citation Award Winning Plays (Lee Blessing's Great Falls and Deborah Zoe Laufer's End Days) and 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Drama (Lynn Nottage's Ruined ), written in part during Lynn's residency at the O'Neill in the summer of 2006. In the 2007-2008 season, nine projects developed during Goldberg's tenure saw their world premieres at theaters across the country. Other critically acclaimed work developed at the O'Neill during Goldberg's tenure includes Adam Bock's The Receptionist, Rebecca Gilman's The Crown You're in With, Jason Grote's 1001 and Julia Cho's Durango. [1]

Goldberg is also the Creative Advisor for the Tony nominated Rock of Ages on Broadway. [2]

Her recent directing credits include Rebecca Gilman's Dollhouse (Guthrie Theater), The Crown You're in With (Goodman Theatre), the world premiere of Deathbed (McGinn/Cazale-NYC), Master Class (Paper Mill Playhouse), Durango (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), DOUBT (co-production with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Actors Theater of Louisville), Third, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, The Clean House , Living Out (Denver Center), the world premiere of False Creeds (Alliance Theater), The Chosen (Actors Theater of Louisville), and the world premiere of A Marriage Minuet (Florida Stage). [3]

American Theatre Magazine hailed Wendy as "one of the country's most promising theater artists working today." [2]

Goldberg sits on the Executive Board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. [3]

Related Research Articles

Wendy MacLeod is an American playwright.

Joseph Bernard Fuqua is an American actor, director, instructor and playwright.

Intiman Theatre is a resident theater company in Seattle, Washington, founded in 1972 by Margaret "Megs" Booker, who named it after Strindberg's Intimate Theater in Stockholm. Through its history, the professional theatre company has been based at various venues in Seattle; since 2021, it has been located as theatre-in-residence at Seattle Central College, performing in two venues on that campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chay Yew</span> American dramatist

Chay Yew is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Kuranda</span> American theatre director

Richard Kuranda is an American director and artist of stage, cinema, and television. In November 2024, he celebrated his 18th anniversary as CEO of the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake, Illinois, and Artistic Director of Williams Street Repertory. A widower, he resides in Illinois with his four children.

Tazewell Thompson is an American theatre director, the former artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse (2006–07) in Westport, Connecticut and the Syracuse Stage (1992–95) in New York state. Prior to that he was an assistant director at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He is the Director of Opera Studies at Manhattan School of Music.

David Esbjornson is a director and producer who has worked throughout the United States in regional theatres and on Broadway, and has established strong and productive relationships with some of the profession's top playwrights, actors, and companies. Esbjornson was the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, Washington, but left that position in summer 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Mann (director)</span> American stage director and dramatist

Emily Betsy Mann is an American director, playwright and screenwriter. She served as the artistic director and resident playwright of the McCarter Theatre Center from 1990 to 2020.

Mel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.

Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. For more than 15 seasons, he has been artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse. In May 2023, he announced he will leave the post in January 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugene O'Neill Theater Center</span> Non-profit theater development facility and school, Waterford, Connecticut

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theater company founded in 1964 by George C. White. It is commonly referred to as The O'Neill, seating just over 1,000 guests. The center has received two Tony Awards, the 1979 Special Award and the 2010 Regional Theatre Award. President Obama presented the 2015 National Medal of Arts to The O'Neill on September 22, 2016.

Robert Falls is an American theater director and the former artistic director of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.

Sharon Langston Ott is a director, producer and educator who worked in regional theaters and opera throughout the United States. Two plays she directed, A Fierce Longing and Amlin Gray's How I Got That Story, each won an Obie award after their New York runs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Gallagher</span> American writer

Mary Gallagher is an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, actress, director and teacher. For six years, she was artistic director of Gypsy, a theatre company in the Hudson Valley, New York, which collaborated with many artists to create site-specific mask-and-puppet music-theatre with texts and lyrics by Gallagher. These pieces included Premanjali and the 7 Geese Brothers, Ama and The Scottish Play. In 1996-97, she directed the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa, and she taught playwriting and screenwriting at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts from 2001 to 2010. She is a member of Actors & Writers, a theater company in the Hudson Valley, and the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York City. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, where she developed many of her plays and created and moderated the series, "You Can Make a Life: Conversations with Playwrights" from 1994 to 2001.

Mark Brokaw is an American theatre director. He won the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Director of a Play for How I Learned to Drive.

Carey Elizabeth Perloff is an American theater director, playwright, author, and educator. She was the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco from 1992 to June 2018.

Edith Oliver was an American theater and film critic who contributed to The New Yorker magazine from 1947 to 1993. Before that, she wrote several radio quiz shows, including Take It or Leave It: the $64 Question, which she also produced. She is best known for her coverage of, and support for, Off-Broadway theater. In 1996 she was presented with the Lucille Lortel award for “Lifetime Dedication to Off-Broadway” by the Off-Broadway League.

Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.

Maria-Christina Oliveras is an American television, stage and film actress, singer and voice-over artist. She has performed extensively on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, and in various films and television series, and is known for her versatility and transformational character work in a number of world premieres. She is of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Zacarias</span> Mexican-American playwright

Karen Zacarías is an American playwright. She is known for her play Mariela in the Desert. It was the winner of the National Latino Playwriting Award and a finalist for other prizes. Mariela in the Desert was debuted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Zacarías is the founder of the Young Playwrights' Theater located in Washington, D.C.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hernandez, Ernio (24 March 2005). "Wendy C. Goldberg Appointed Artistic Director of O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference". Playbill. Retrieved 2011-02-08.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Hong, Terry (1 January 2004). "Wendy C. Goldberg: The Connector; New Works Flourish in the Able Hands of a Bright Young Director on the Rise". American Theatre Magazine. Retrieved 2011-02-08.
  3. 1 2 "2010 Tony Award Winners". New York Times. 4 May 2010. Retrieved 4 June 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.