NEW YORK CITY: Working Theater has announced Tamilla Woodard as its new co-artistic director. Having previously served as the artistic director of the company’s Five Boroughs/One City initiative, Woodard now joins co-artistic director Mark Plesent as the organization moves into its 36th season.
A graduate of Yale School of Drama, Woodard served for two years as associate artistic director with WP Theater as part of the inaugural cohort of the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle. She is co-founder of PopUP Theatrics and the associate director of Hadestown on Broadway, and last month she was named one of 50 Women to Watch on Broadway by the Broadway Women’s Fund..She is also the recipient of an Off-Broadway Alliance award for Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical at Atlantic Theater Company and the Josephine Abady Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women.
“Working Theater has been an artistic home for almost a decade,” Woodard said in a statement. “I am so delighted and honored now to join Mark Plesent as its co-artistic director. Given the moment we are all in, I feel extremely fortunate to be able to lead a company so singularly committed to telling the stories of working people—the teachers, nurses, bus drivers, building workers, and electricians who are keeping this city running for all of us at this time. I’m looking forward to reflecting their heroism, on many kinds of stages, by bringing together extraordinary theatre artists, deep community engagement, and continued innovation.”
“Having Tamilla join Working Theater as co-artistic director with me is a huge boon to the company,” said Mark Plesent in a statement. “Tamilla’s artistic integrity, passion for engagement, and deep commitment to Working Theater’s mission will enhance the growth we have experienced over the last few years. The decade Tamilla and I have spent building a solid working relationship…will enable us to meet the challenges currently facing the organization and the world with both equanimity and enthusiasm.”
Working Theater believes the “transformative experience of live theatre should not be a luxury, but a staple.” The organization creates artistic and educational programming for and about working people—laborers in the industrial and service economies, who may be unable to afford commercial theatre or feel that it does not resonate with their lives and experience. Toward that goal, the company offers low ticket prices and presents stories that reflect a diverse population of the working majority, in hopes of “uniting us in our common humanity.”
