The Drama League Directors Project Opens 2026 Applications

The Drama League has opened the 2026-2027 applications for The Directors Project, its acclaimed suite of Fellowships, Residencies, and Assistantships for emerging and established stage directors. Among the offerings are two new director-led play development residences, partnerships with over a dozen theater companies, and a national training accelerator for early-career directors at Carnegie Mellon University.

Among the new announcements today:

Lincoln Center Theater has joined the lineup of theaters partnering in the 2026 Drama League Stage Directing Fellowships, which offer emerging directors $100,000 scholarship awards and two years of opportunities to observe, assist, and direct at some of America’s most exciting theater companies. The 2026-28 participating theaters include Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Stage and Film, Playwrights’ Center, and Red Bull Theater.

The FutureNow Fellowships, a partnership with Chautauqua Theater Company, have expanded to support pairs of director and playwright collaborators, who will develop a new play culminating in a workshop production at CTC’s new Roe Green Theater Center, under construction and scheduled to open in Summer 2026, as part of their season.

A new training accelerator, The Drama League Directors Retreat at Carnegie Mellon, will have its first edition in June 2026. On the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, nationally-renowned directors will mentor the Fellowship recipients in a process-first, skills-focused scene study designed to consciously interrogate the discipline of directing.

The Drama League also announced the acclaimed directors who will be taking Directors Project Assistant Directors as part of the Irene Gandy Directing Assistantships: Lili-Anne Brown (The Wild Party, Dreamgirls), Melissa Crespo (O.K.!, Once), and Timothy Douglas (The Color Purple, Primary Trust).

The Drama League’s longstanding partnership with New York Stage and Film continues with the Stage Directing Fellowship, Next Stage Directing Residency, and now the Television and Film Directing Fellowships; in that program, in addition to shadowing on a major television project during the season, the Fellows will join the NYSAF Filmmakers’ Workshop each summer to direct readings by rising screenwriters, under the guidance of legendary Hollywood writers, producers, and showrunners.

In a vast new partnership with Hubbard Hall Center for the Arts and Education, The Drama League will radically expand its director-centered new work residencies. The Beatrice Terry Residency will now enjoy extended resources, time, and personnel in Hubbard Hall’s state-of-the-art facilities in Cambridge, NY. Hubbard Hall will also host two brand-new Drama League initiatives: The (Re)Envision Residency, which supports directors reimagining works from the public domain or antiquity, and the (Re)Engage Residency, which invites the nearly 500 alumni of The Directors Project to return to The Drama League to develop a new project with their collaborators.

The Directors Project also continues its international programming, including the Rose Directing Fellowship at the Rose Theatre in southwest London, where emerging directors join the artistic staff and stage their own work with the Rose Young Company. Next month, the International Directors Exchange will bring sixteen directors from seven countries – Bulgaria, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and the United States – to the A.C.T. Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, with events planned in Poland and Lithuania in summer 2026.

Applications for all programs are now available at dramaleague.org/apply.