The Drama League Reveals Recipients of 2016 Directors Project Fellowships

The Drama League has announced the 11 stage directors who have been selected as the 2016 Directing Fellows of The Drama League Directors Project: Noa Egozi, Drew Feldman, Sara Holdren, Candis Jones, Yavor Kostov, Katie Lupica, James Palmer, Jesca Prudencio, Ilana Ransom Toeplitz, Chloe Treat, Shaun Patrick Tubbs. More information can be found at www.dramaleague.org

The eleven recipients, who will spend the next year as part of the award-winning program, have been accepted into four different programs of study: the Leo Shull Fellowship for New Musicals (a partnership with Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA); the Hangar Directing Program (a partnership with the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY); the New York Fall Directing Program; and the Classical Directing Program (a partnership with The Old Globe of San Diego, CA; the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival of Garrison, NY; and Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA).

"Of the over 2,000 artists supported by The Drama League's programs each year, The Directors Project Fellows are the centerpiece of our mission," remarked Executive Director Gabriel Shanks. "I couldn't be more proud to present these talented artists to the larger community, and to watch them take the next steps in their promising careers."

The Fellowships will begin on May 16, 2016 with Drama League Professionals Week, where they will meet industry luminaries, attend Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, and start their developmental training. They will be publicly introduced to the professional theatre community during the 82nd Annual Drama League Awards Ceremony hosted by Zachary Levi and Megan Hilty on Friday, May 20, 2016 at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in the Broadway Ballroom (1535 Broadway).

Since its founding in 1984, The Drama League Directors Project has been recognized as the preeminent career development program for theatre directors - providing talented young artists with transformative experiences in the professional theatre. Its 300+ alumni can be found working in all aspects of the entertainment profession: at the helm of productions on Broadway and Off-Broadway, at regional theatres companies, in film and television, and as artistic directors and associate directors at 55 regional theatres across the country. Many are also producers, writers, agents, administrators, and educators of the next generation of directors, at some of the finest professional training programs. 'Drama League Directors' have been honored with many awards, including the Tony, Emmy, Obie, Drama Desk, and its own Drama League Award, with the praise of critics and audiences alike.

THE DRAMA LEAGUE 2016 FELLOWS OF THE DIRECTORS PROJECT

LEO SHULL NEW MUSICALS DIRECTING FELLOW
The Leo Shull Fellowship for New Musicals places an early-career director as part of the creative teams of two new musicals at SigWorks, the developmental workshop and festival at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA. The fellow is also mentored by Sigworks director Joe Calarco before returning to New York to direct their own presentation of new musical scenes.

Ilana Ransom Toeplitz is a NYC-based director/choreographer. Favorite directing credits include: Reefer Madness (2014: New World Stages feat. Alan Cumming & 2015 54 Below 10th Anniversary Concert), LADY PARTS: Comedy Songs for Women from Writers of the BMI Workshop (54 Below), My Precious Snugglefluff (Lincoln Center), Are You There Morgan Freeman? (NYMF), Shark Attack! (Elektra Theatre), Juliet & Juliet (York Theatre), A Christmas Story (Associate Director, First National Tour), The Drowsy Chaperone, and Lucky Stiff. She holds assisting credits with Baayork Lee, Daniel Knechtges, Huntington Theatre, Pittsburgh CLO, and Second Stage. Ilana served as assistant director on Leigh Silverman's 2014 Tony-nominated revival of Violet.

HANGAR DIRECTING FELLOWS
A practicum in artistic leadership of a regional theatre, where fellows lead a resident acting company in programming, directing, and producing the second stage season at the Hangar Theater in Ithaca, NY.

Drew Feldman is a theater & film director currently based in NYC. He is the Co-Artistic Director of unMasqued, a nomadic company staging work across the United States (www.unmasqued.org). Select theater credits: Much Ado About Nothing (unMasqued, LA & Tour), Sight Unseen (Out of the Box, Oklahoma City), a devised work titled Love Again (Broadway Fun-for-Funds, Oklahoma City). His films and music videos have screened in multiple festivals around the US and in the UK. Drew is a proud alumnus of the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and received a BFA in Acting from Oklahoma City University.

Yavor Kostov graduated from Sofia University in English and American studies in 1997. He started making theatre in the nineties as part of an independent theatre school and later a group which produced experimental texts. In 2003, he participated in a two-month joint project and tour between NYC's Bond Street Theater and Theatre Tsvete /Sofia. Most recently, he staged Mac Wellman's Antigone as part of "Imagining America" at the 2014 Varna International Theatre Festival and in 2016 at New Bulgarian University.

Katie Lupica - NY Directing: Diary of Lights (workshop, Drama League Artist Residency);Pains of Youth (Access Theatre, The Cake Shop); Portrait and a Dream (FringeNYC); Erik Ehn's Saint Plays (Barnard College); The Yellow Boat (touring);. Regional Directing: Chemistry (Cincinnati Fringe, Producer's Pick); Lysistrata (Stone on a Walk Theatre); short plays at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Assisting: Stupid Fu**ing Bird (The Pearl), Smokefall (MCC), Godspell (1st Broadway Revival, SDCF Obs.), Peter and the Starcatcher (Cincinnati Playhouse, St. Louis Rep), Pygmalion (Williamstown), and a season as Directing Fellow at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Education: Columbia University, summa cum laude. katielupica.com

Chloe Treat is a New York based director and choreographer. Born and raised in Texas, she directs and choreographs musicals, plays, operas, outdoor dance rituals and feminist westerns. Director: Blood Wedding (North East School of the Arts), Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (Tisch School of the Arts), The Two Character Play (NESA). Choreographer: Lucia Di Lammermoor (Heartbeat Opera), The Good Swimmer (The Prototype Festival), All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare on the Sound), Daphnis and Chloe (Heartbeat Opera). Assistant/Associate: Natasha Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 (A.R.T), Amelie (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Heisenberg (Manhattan Theatre Club), Buyer and Cellar (Barrow Street Theater), The Fairy Tale Lives of Russian Girls (Yale Repertory Theater).

CLASSICAL DIRECTING FELLOWS
The Drama League Classical Directing Fellows will enjoy summer residencies at three of America's leading theatrical homes for classical work - The Old Globe, The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and Shakespeare & Company - assisting on mainstage productions and directing in their educational and touring programs.

Noa Egozi is a New York based Israeli director. Recent productions include Maria Irene Fornes' Mud, Lorne Svarc's Chained Woman, Sylvia Khoury's An Inferno, Peter Turrini's Shooting Rats and an original five­-person adaptation of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. She holds an MFA in directing from The New School for Drama and a B.Ed. in Theatre Directing/Education from Kibbutzim College in Tel Aviv. Currently, Noa is The Play Company's Artistic Intern, a teaching assistant for Stephen Brown-­Fried's Directing Classical Plays class at The New School, and she is developing a one-woman adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.

Sara Holdren is a Brooklyn director/theater-maker originally from Charlottesville, Virginia. Recent projects include Deer and the Lovers by Emily Zemba, The Zero Scenario by Ryan Campbell, and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. In 2015 she served as Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret, where she directed MIDSUMMER (which she co-adapted from the works of William Shakespeare) and Sarah Ruhl's Orlando. Other work: Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and her own adaptations of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays and Leonid Andreyev's He Who Gets Slapped. She is also a graphic designer, teacher, and graduate of the Acting Shakespeare program at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. BA: Yale University. MFA: Yale School of Drama, Directing. www.saraholdren.com

NEW YORK FALL DIRECTING FELLOWS
An immersion for four directors in directing opportunities in the professional theatre, both regionally and in New York City, culminating in a festival of their work Off-Broadway.

Candis Jones is a theatre director and devised artist. She is the founder of Theater Yin Yin, an interdisciplinary theater collaborative. Recent credits include Daughters of the Bayou (Weeksville Heritage Center/Theater Yin Yin), Sandy's Rain (Venus Theatre Festival), Vinyl Love Affair (Theater Yin Yin). Upcoming Credits include Itagua Meji (National Black Theatre), ACTion Tanzania (DAT). Candis has assisted directors Timothy Douglas, Kwame Kwei-Armah, and Timothy Bond. She is a proud alumni of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and New York University Tisch Drama. Candis is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Union. www.candiscjones.com

James Palmer is New York based director. For nine seasons he served as the Artistic Director of Chicago's Red Tape Theatre. He was the assistant to the Artistic Director at Steppenwolf Theatre and served on the Board of the League of Chicago Theaters. In 2010 he was awarded a Joseph Jefferson award for Best Direction of The Love of the Nightingale. Recent directing credits include: These Seven Sicknesses, Hamlet, Rocket to the Moon(Brown/Trinity); Church (Chautauqua); Lear, Elephant's Graveyard, The Gingerbread House (Red Tape). New play work at The Goodman, Victory Gardens, American Theater Company, and Chicago Dramatists, among others.

Jesca Prudencio recently received her MFA at UCSD, where she directed Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus, Goldoni's The Venetian Twins, and Ben Fisher's Campo Maldito, which tours this summer with her company People Of Interest. She has developed work at East West Players, La MaMa, Old Vic, Joe's Pub, and Musical Theatre Factory. Jesca worked with Ping Chong as his Artistic Associate on numerous projects nationwide and assistant directed Scott Schwartz on Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Upcoming: Will Snider's How to Use a Knife. BFA: NYU Tisch. MFA: UCSD. www.jescaprudencio.com

Shaun Patrick Tubbs is a director and actor. Recipient of the 2015-16 Asolo Repertory Theatre Directing Fellowship, the 2015 Kurt Weill Fellowship, the 2014-15 SDC Observers Program, and the 2011 OSF Fair Program. Directing/assistant directing credits include The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Royal Opera House, London), King Hedley II (Arena Stage), Julius Caesar (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), All The Way (Asolo Repertory Theatre), Disgraced (Asolo Repertory Theatre) and Here I Go (La MaMa Spoleto, Italy). Shaun received his M.F.A. from The University of Texas at Austin, and B.F.A. from Wright State University. Member of SDC, AEA, and SAG-AFTRA. www.shaunpatricktubbs.com

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