The Board of Directors

Adam Marple
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Performing Arts

A Bi-monthly interview series with the world’s leading theatre directors, exploring how they navigate their artistry both inside and outside the rehearsal room, creating an international platform for dialogue on directing practice, leadership, and the evolving role of the director in contemporary theatre, expanding access to professional knowledge-sharing, and fostering community among emerging and established directors worldwide.

  1. Sep 28

    BoD Episode 27: Benita de Wit

    Benita de Wit (they/them) is an Australian director based in New York. Recently, they were a Mercury Store lead artist and directed Life Sucks by Aaron Posner at Oklahoma City Rep. Benita is an SDC Member, a Barbara Whitman Award 2024 Finalist, and a New Georges-affiliated artist. They have developed new work at Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Mercury Store, Powerhouse Theatre, Gingold Theatrical Group, Exquisite Corpse Company, Dartmouth College, and Playwrights Horizons Theater School. Benita has an MFA in Directing from Columbia University and is on the faculty at Circle in the Square Theatre School. As an Associate Director, their credits include Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Blvd  starring Nicole Scherzinger (Broadway), SIX The Musical (Broadway), Black Swan (A.R.T), Bat Out of Hell (US & UK Tours), and Straight Line Crazy (The Shed) starring Ralph Fiennes as Robert Moses. Directing credits include Creature/Comfort (Exponential Festival), The Shark Is Broken (Weathervane Theatre), Small Mouth Sounds (Circle in the Square Theatre School), The Moors (Theatre Row), Tartuffe (Pace University), Slaughterhouse (Belvoir St Theatre), Razorhurst (Hayes Theatre Co), and Salty (Access Theatre). Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 27: Benita de Wit

  2. Sep 14

    BoD Episode 26: Saheem Ali

    Saheem is a proud immigrant from Kenya, currently serving as the Associate Artistic Director/ Resident Director of New York’s Public Theater. He is a Tony Award nominee for Buena Vista Social Club and Fat Ham, the latter of which also earned the Joe A. Callaway Award, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations. His Shakespeare in the Park productions of Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night and Merry Wives were recorded for PBS Great Performances, and were the subject of the HBO documentary Reopening Night. Other productions include Goddess, Good Bones, Fires in the Mirror (Signature Theatre), The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center Theater), Passage (Soho Rep) and Sugar in Our Wounds (MTC). He is the recipient of an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Directing, a Sir John Gielgud SDCF Fellow and a Shubert Fellow. MFA: Columbia University Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 26: Saheem Ali

  3. Aug 31

    BoD Episode 25: Nambi E Kelley

    Nambi E. Kelley is an award-winning actor, playwright, and television writer-producer whose work bridges history, politics, and intimate human storytelling. As an actor, she has performed regionally, internationally, and on television, including productions playing opposite greats such as Phylicia Rashad and Alfre Woodard, multiple productions at Goodman Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with select television appearances on Chicago Med, Elementary, Person of Interest, Madam Secretary, Chicago P.D., and Chicago Justice. Recent stage credits include Goodman Theatre's critically acclaimed Joe Turner's Come & Gone, MacArthur Genius Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline, and off-Broadway in Jeff Sweet’s Kunstler. Nambi has been nominated for multiple acting awards, including Chicago's prestigious Jeff Award and multiple Broadway World Awards, winning a Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Lead Actor for her role in Coffee Will Make You Black (City Lit Theatre).  As a writer, Kelley has written and produced for television on shows such as Peacock's Bel-Air and Apple's Lady in the Lake, earning a Black Reel Award nomination for her work on the latter. She also served as a writer on Lena Waithe's The Chi and Fox's Our Kind of People. Her acclaimed stage adaptation of Native Son received productions nationwide, including at Yale Repertory Theatre and in New York with The Acting Company, earning an AUDELCO Award for Best Production and a Drama League nomination for Best Revival. Personally selected by Toni Morrison to adapt Jazz, Kelley continues to develop bold new theatrical work, including Broadway-aimed projects with Tony Award winners Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Ken Davenport, and Grammy Award-winning DJ duo Future Cut with Emily Phillips. Most recently, Kelley developed a television project with political icon Stacey Abrams and is currently developing a project with Grammy Award-winning rapper Nas and Oscar and MacArthur Genius Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney for Lionsgate and Disney Entertainment Television’s Onyx Collective/Hulu (TBA). As a producer, in addition to television work, Kelley founded First Woman LLC, a family-centered production company creating work across film, television, and theatre. First Woman produced the internationally award-winning film adaptation of Jabari Dreams of Freedom, which also toured nationally as a play after premiering at New Victory Theater in New York City. The company has produced 4 national tours and is currently in pre-production for its upcoming 2026–27 touring season, including a run at the world-famous Apollo Theatre in New York (TBA). Kelley holds a B.F.A. from The Theatre School at DePaul University and an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 25: Nambi E Kelley

  4. Aug 17

    BoD Episode 24: Copeland Woodruff

    Copeland Woodruff is currently the Mary and Michael Jaharis Director of Opera Studies at Lawrence University, Conservatory of Music. He has been on the directing and production staffs of the New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Yale Opera, Atlantic Coast Opera Festival (NJ), and Opera North (Philadelphia and New Hampshire). He has been on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, Academy of Vocal Arts, Temple University, University of Memphis, Universität Bamberg, the Harrower Opera Workshop, Red River Lyric Opera, La musica lirica (Italy), and Festival of International Opera of the Americas (Brazil). Copeland is highly sought after as a teacher of the singing actor and has directed 100+ productions, including the 2013 world premiere of the musical Raise the Red Lantern at the Tianqiao Theatre in Beijing, China. Since 2006, his productions have earned seventeen National Opera Association Best Opera Production Awards (including nine first-place awards) and nine awards in The American Prize (including two first-place awards), among other recognition and citations. He is the first recipient of the Charles Nelson Reilly Prize in Directing from The American Prize (2018). He was recently recognized as an Honored Artist of the American Prize (2023), which is awarded to those who have proven themselves to be of "sustained excellence" over a number of seasons as laureates of The American Prize competitions. He has enjoyed an extended relationship with Boston Conservatory’s Ensemble-in-Residence, Guerilla Opera. In addition to having served on their advisory board, he has directed three productions for the company, one of which (Rojahn’s Heart of a Dog) earned Second Prize in the American Prize for Opera Performance competition, professional division. Heart of a Dog was a favorite at the Opera America convention in May 2011 and its sold-out, two-week run in Boston garnered such reviews as: “…a brilliant stroke of staging” and “…stunning” (Boston Musical Intelligencer); “brilliantly physicalized in this extraordinarily well-acted production” and “a prime and rare example of opera properly compounded with theater” (Boston Lowbrow). Copeland is a proud member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). He has a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Vocal Performance (USC); M.F.A. studies in Theatrical Design (Lighting; USC); and a Master's in Stage Direction in Opera (Indiana University). He has also been lucky enough to assist Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, as well as train with them. https://www.lawrence.edu/people/copeland-woodruff-mary-and-michael-jaharis-director-of-opera-studies-and-associate-professor-of-music Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 24: Copeland Woodruff

  5. Aug 3

    BoD Episode 23: Natalie Hennedige

    Natalie Hennedige is the founder and artistic director of CAKE, a Singapore-based performance company creating interdisciplinary works across diverse spaces. At the core of CAKE’s methodology is a commitment to interdisciplinarity and collaboration. The company works across theatre, dance, music, visual arts, film, and multimedia to generate hybrid forms that resist categorisation. This is embodied in long-running platforms such as Jamming Space and Running with Strippers, which function as exploratory frameworks for artistic exchange, experimentation, and the development of new performance vocabularies. A director and writer, Natalie works with performers and artists across disciplines and cultural contexts, shaping highly constructed, heightened worlds that interrogate complex states. She is the recipient of the National Arts Council Young Artist Award and the JCCI Singapore Foundation Culture Award. Most recently, she served as Festival Director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (2022–2025).  https://www.caketheatre.co/ Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 23: Natalie Hennedige

  6. Season 2 Trailer

    The Board of Directors International Monthly Meet-Up Reminder

    We invite you to this month’s International Directors’ Meet-Up, our monthly gathering of directors and theatre makers from around the world. It’s a space to share experiences, trade advice, and find support in what can often be a pretty isolating role. You can come and go as you need, drop in late, leave early, whatever fits your schedule. It’s simply a chance to set aside time each month to sit alongside others who understand the work. For dates, times, and details, head to boardofdirectors.world and pull up a chair at the table. Join the Board. Connect with us Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    The Board of Directors International Monthly Meet-Up Reminder

  7. Jul 13

    BoD Episode 22: Simón Adinia Hanukai

    Simón Adinia Hanukai is a theater maker, director, and educator. Originally from Baku, Azerbaijan, he spent the early years of his career in Oakland, California, where he was a founding member of headRush Crew and the Co-Artistic Director of the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company. Working with both companies for six years, he was instrumental in creating original full-length dance theater pieces, which toured nationally and were seen by over 25,000 people per year. Highlights include sharing the stage with Desmond Tutu, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Neil Young, Alfre Woodard, and Martin Sheen. Since leaving the Bay Area, Simón has created work and taught throughout the U.S., the Middle East, Europe, and India.  His directing credits include JUPITER (a play about power) (La MaMa E.T.C., NY), SPACES: Oakland (Oakland City Hall), DATAPRINT Multimedia Installation & Performance (The Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, CA & Cubbon Park Metro Station, Bangalore, India), SPACES: Saint-Denis (Market Hall and Cathedral of Saint-Denis), The Shared Prince (Cabaret Sauvage, Paris), Rest Upon The Wind (Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NY), The Golden Drum Year (University Settlement, NY), Les Alibis (Junevents Festival, Atelier De Paris – Carolyn Carlson, France), Decline & Fall or; A Guide to How the End Begins for Those Too Big To Fail (Tricklock Performance Lab, New Mexico), The Fall (Flamboyán, NY), Flying Ace and The Storm of the Century (Odin Teatret, Denmark), One Heart for Two (Winkel & Balktick, NY), Phaedra's Cabaret (Flux Industries, NY). Simón is an honored recipient of the Dean’s Fellowship from Columbia University and the Emerging Artists Fellowship from New York Theatre Workshop. Artist Residencies include: NACL Deep Space Residency; Odin Theater, Denmark; E|MERGE Interdisciplinary Artist Residency; Catwalk Art Residency; Sally and Don Lucas Arts Program at the Montalvo Arts Center; CHIMÈRES Interdisciplinary Residency, Ministry of Culture, France. Simón is a Theatre Professor at Sciences Po Paris. He holds a Master's degree in Education from the University of San Francisco’s Center for Teaching Excellence and Social Justice and an MFA in Theater Directing from Columbia University. https://www.kaimeraproductions.com/ Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 22: Simón Adinia Hanukai

  8. Jul 6

    BoD Episode 21: Aya Ogawa

    Aya Ogawa is a multi-award-winning Brooklyn-based playwright, director, performer and translator whose work reflects an international viewpoint and utilizes the stage as a space for exploring cultural identity and the immigrant experience. Cumulatively, all aspects of their artistic practice synthesize their work as an artistic and cultural ambassador, building bridges across cultures to create meaningful exchange amongst artists, theaters and audiences both in the U.S. and in Asia.  They challenge traditional notions of the American aesthetic and identity by creating performances infused with a multiplicity of perspectives and languages, and by incorporating influences from outside the U.S. – of style, form, and content. As a theater-maker, they frequently uses a collaborative creative process with performers and designers and pushes the form with an eye not only on spoken text, but physicality, musicality, and interactivity.  As playwright/director in New York City, Ogawa’s 2003 A GIRL OF 16 (Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center) was hailed by The New York Times for its “stunning visual sense.” Their 2008 OPH3LIA (HERE) was called “riotously alive…great theater” by The New York Times. Their ARTIFACT was featured in CUNY’s 2007 Prelude Festival and the 2009 Performance Mix Festival (Joyce Soho). They were commissioned by The Foundry Theatre to create a work in collaboration with Adhikaar, a human rights organization serving the US Nepali community. The resulting piece, JOURNEY TO THE OCEAN, was presented by The Rubin Museum in 2011.  Their play LUDIC PROXY commissioned by The Play Company, explored humankind’s relationship to technology (from nuclear power to VR and video games) through the events of Chernobyl, Fukushima, and into the future. Its 2015 premiere at WalkerSpace was described as “beautifully conceived” by the NYTimes.  They were a playwright in residence at The New Museum for X:ID a research-driven pop-up repertory theater designed to examine the shifting ethical boundaries surrounding intercultural cross-play on contemporary American stages. They wrote, directed and performed in the 6-person cast for their Obie Award-winning play THE NOSEBLEED (Under the Radar Festival 2019; Japan Society & Chocolate Factory Theatre 2021; Lincoln Center Theatre LCT3 2022; Woolly Mammoth Theater 2023). Their latest creation, MEAT SUIT premiered with Second Stage in February 2026. As a director they directed Haruna Lee’s Obie Award-winning play SUICIDE FOREST in its world premiere production at The Bushwick Starr in 2019 and its off-Broadway remount with Ma-Yi in 2020.  9000 Paper Balloons (co-created by Spencer Lott and Maiko Kikuchi) was released as a puppet performance film by HERE in November 2021 and ran at Japan Society in October 2022. In Decmeber 2024 they directed Dan Fishback’s Dan Fishback is Alive, Unwell and Living in His Apartment at Joe’s Pub. Upcoming work includes Jared Mezzocchi’s one-person play 73 Seconds, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s historical epic The Unsinkable, and Haruna Lee’s 49 Days. As a translator they have been commissioned to translate numerous Japanese plays into English that have been produced in the U.S. and London, including over a dozen plays by Toshiki Okada, writer/director of chelfitsch theater company. Time Out called their rendition of Okada’s ENJOY (Play Company at 59E59, 2010; published by Samuel French) an “effortless, idiomatic translation”; The Village Voice hailed their translation of Okada’s FIVE DAYS IN MARCH (Witness Relocation at LaMama, 2010) as “a miracle of transposed idiom.” Their translation of Okada’s ZERO COST HOUSE was presented at Philly Live Arts 2012, Under the Radar Festival 2013 and Yokohama, Japan. From 2014-2024 they served on the selection committee for the Japan Playwrights Association’s publication series  ENGEKI: Japanese Theatre in the New Millennium. Aya has performed nationally and internationally.  They originated and performed numerous roles with the International WOW Company including JR Oppenheimer in The Bomb and the title role in Alice’s Evidence. Time Out NY hailed their performance as Chomsky in The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky by the Butane Group. International credits include their role in the world premiere of the award-winning Emperor and Kiss with Rinko-Gun Company, Tokyo; they were selected as part of the artist team representing the U.S. at the International Theater Institute’s 2006 Congress in Manila and 2008 Congress in Madrid for which they co-created and performed in the resulting collaborative pieces; and the European premiere of Young Jean Lee’s Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven at the Vienna Festival. More recently they performed in the first season of Shaina Feinberg’s web series Dinette and in their own play The Nosebleed. They are the recipient of the 2025 Doris Duke Artist Award, 2023 Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting; 2023 OBIE Award for the conception, writing and direction of The Nosebleed; 2023 Grants to Artists from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts;  The 2023-24 Playwrights’ Center’s McKnight National Residency and Commission; MacDowell Fellow; The 2022-23 Cullman Award for Extraordinary Creativity at Lincoln Center Theater; MAP Fund grants; 2015 President’s Award for Performing Arts, WorkSpace grant and three Swing Space grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; an Artistic Fellowship at New York Theater Workshop (where they are now a Usual Suspect); the Van Lier Fellowship and 2017-2026 Resident Playwright at New Dramatists; a HERE Artist Residency; Artist in Residence 2017-2019, 2017 Parent Artist Space Grantee and Space Grantee at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX); support from NYSCA and the Urban Artist Initiative, and The Women's Film, TV and Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME).  Aya served on the Obie Award committee for two seasons 2023-2025, and they’re glad to have their evenings back. They have been a guest artist/lecturer at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, UT Austin, Brown University, Mount Holyoke College, University of Maryland, University of Pittsburgh, New York University, University of Puget Sound, and Stony Brook University, as well as a mentor at The Orchard Project and Clubbed Thumb.  https://www.ayaogawa.com/   Connect with us This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.  Support the show To submit a question: Voice- https://www.speakpipe.com/TheBoardofDirectors Email- adam@boardofdirectors.world Show Credits Host: Adam Marple Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/home

    BoD Episode 21: Aya Ogawa
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About

A Bi-monthly interview series with the world’s leading theatre directors, exploring how they navigate their artistry both inside and outside the rehearsal room, creating an international platform for dialogue on directing practice, leadership, and the evolving role of the director in contemporary theatre, expanding access to professional knowledge-sharing, and fostering community among emerging and established directors worldwide.

Information

  • Creator
    Adam Marple
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Board of Directors
  • Show Website
    The Board of Directors

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