Jay Ilan

I was raised on musical theatre. My grandparents took me to every dinner theatre production Southern California had to offer, and I could sing the entire score to Sweeney Todd before my Bar Mitzvah. The path to NYU Tisch felt less like a choice and more like gravity.

I spent close to fifteen years in New York making theatre — performing, associate directing bare at the American Theatre of Actors, assisting director Deb Hurwitz on several musicals, winning a Backstage Bistro Award with a cabaret vocal trio, teaching Feedback Forum, arranging harmonies for workshops at Ars Nova. Summers I'd head up to Acting Manitou (now Ghostlight Theater Camp) where I taught, music directed, and directed devised productions — including a Neverending Story and a Hercules that I'm still proud of.

Eventually I pivoted into a second career in tech, leading learning, organizational development, and executive coaching at companies like Adobe, Meta, and Lyft. It shaped everything about how I think about making art. I spent a decade learning how to build teams where people do their best work — facilitating hard conversations, giving feedback that actually lands, designing systems where collaboration isn't aspirational but structural. When I came back to theatre, all of that came with me.

Now I'm in the Bay Area, where I've found a theatre community that values the same things I do. I wear a lot of hats and I like it that way. Directing a show changes how I walk into an audition. Breaking down text as a dramaturg changes how I teach a song. The disciplines talk to each other.

I'm also a social worker and therapist — I completed my MSW at the University of Michigan in 2026. That training deepened how I think about what happens between people in a rehearsal room, a classroom, and everywhere else. It reinforced what I've always believed: I bring my whole self to this process — director, dramaturg, social worker, organizational coach. These skills aren't secondary; they're essential to creating a space where creatives can do brave and imaginative work.

I live in Oakland with my husband and our dog. I play too much piano, argue about Sondheim with anyone who'll engage, and remain convinced that Caroline, or Change is the great American musical.