2010-2012 Lab Directors

Tea Alagic
Jessi D. Hill
Sarah Rasmussen
Mia Rovegno
Nicole A. Watson

Click here for a list of Directors Lab Alumnae.



TEA ALAGIC
Contact: www.teaalagic.com

Off-Broadway directing work includes Aliens With Extraordinary Skills by Saviana Stanescu (Woman’s Project, NYC), The Brothers Size by Tarell McCraney (Under the Radar Festival, The Public Theater in NYC, The Studio Theater in Washington DC, and The Abbey Theater in Dublin), and Binibon, by Jack Womack with music by Elliot Sharp (The Kitchen, NYC). Tea’s regional credits include Zero Hour, which she wrote and directed as a personal exploration of the impact of the Balkan War (Yale University Theater, CT); Speaking Our Mind by eight young playwrights (part of the Carlotta Festival at Yale’s New Theater, CT); The Donny Hathaway Story by Kenneth Robinson  (Yale Cabaret, CT); Marcus Brutus by Tea Alagic, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; and Chiang Kai Chek by Charles Mee (Yale Cabaret, CT). She directed Woyzek by George Buchner, Self–Accusation by Peter Handke, Preparadise Sorry Now by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Baal by Bertolt Brecht while she was Associate Artistic Director of the Ensemble Company for the Performing Arts (ECPA.) International directing work includes The Marriage of Maria Braun by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (ZKM, Croatia);  Events with Life’s Leftovers by Alberto Villarreal Diaz (Mexico City, Dramafest); and The Filament Cycle (BAC London, Potsdam Festival, 4+4 Festival in Movement, Prague, Philadelphia Fringe Festival). As an actor, Tea has worked with Ariane Mnouchkine at Theatre du Soleil in Paris; with Robert Lepage as a member of his Ex Machina Company in Quebec City, including a four-year world tour; and with Richard Foreman at the Ontological Theater in NYC. She has performed in some of the most renowned theaters around the globe - NYC, Zurich, Vienna, Cairo, Edinburgh, Toronto, Jerusalem, Singapore, Lisbon, Paris, London, and many others.  Tea was honored with a Soros Fellowship; a 2004 CEC Arts Link Performing Arts; and Literature Award and Best Show Awards for Al Hamlet Summit by Sulayman Al Bassam at both the Cairo International Festival and the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. She holds a BFA in acting from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and an MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama where she received the Julian Milton Kaufman Prize in Directing. Tea, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives in NYC.

JESSI D. HILL
Contact: www.jessidhill.com

Recent credits include:  Sladjana Vujovic's The Tender Mercies (One Year Lease at Teatro Circulo, NYC), Mia McCullough's Lucinda's Bed (Chicago Dramatists), Alena Smith's It or Her (soloNOVA Arts Festival at PS122, Berkshire Fringe Festival, 2010 Frigid Festival Audience Choice Award, NYC) Jeff Grow's Creating Illusion (terraNOVA Collective, 2 New York Innovative Theatre Awards, NYC),  Johnna Adams' Angel Eaters (Flux Theatre Ensemble, 6 New York Innovative Theatre Award Nominations, NYC), The Children's Hour (Astoria Performing Arts Center, NYC), as well as many new plays in development at The New Group, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, Red Fern, Diverse City, among others.   She has recently been Staff Repertory Director for The Acting Company, a Director-in-Residence at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and a guest director at Fordham, NYU/Strasberg, NYU/Tisch and Long Island University.  Jessi is a transplant to NYC from Chicago where she lived for eight years working as a freelance director and Artistic Director of Stage Left Theatre, an ensemble based company dedicated to developing and producing new plays. She is currently Director of terraNOVA Collective's Groundbreakers new play development program and an Affiliated Artist of New Georges.  Jessi is a recipient of the Denham Fellowship from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and was recently named a finalist for the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

SARAH RASMUSSEN
Contact: www.srasmussen.com

was recently named a 2011 Princess Grace Award recipient.  Upcoming:  developing/ directing the world premiere of Crashing the Party for Mixed Blood’s inaugural season of free theater, collaboratively creating We Play for the Gods (Women’s Project), In the Next Room (The Jungle) and a new musical for Ten Thousand Things.  Recent work includes:  Chile Pod, a new TYA musical (La Jolla Playhouse), Sacrifice (Culture Project’s Women Center Stage), 1001, Red Ink: New Work by First Nation Writers (Mixed Blood), Twelfth Night, Skin of Our Teeth (UCSD/La Jolla Playhouse).  Sarah has developed and directed new work with SoHo Rep Writer/Director Lab, the O’Neill, PlayPenn, The Lark, New Dramatists, Theater Masters, UCSD's Baldwin New Play Festival and Playwrights Center.  She’s been a Guest Director at Long Island University’s BFA program (Eurydice, A Flea in Her Ear, I Am Montana), Brooklyn College MFA’s playwright’s showcase and a teaching artist in her home state of South Dakota.  As an assistant director: Lincoln Center/Broadway, The Public, OSF, Old Globe Shakespeare Festival, Guthrie.  As an associate director: Arena Stage.  Sarah currently serves as the Associate Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Black Swan Lab, and annual new work development program.  She is a recipient of a Fulbright, Drama League Directing Fellowship, OSF’s Phil Killian Fellowship and is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab and SDC.  MFA, UCSD.
 

MIA ROVEGNO
Mia is a Brooklyn-based director, playwright, and puppeteer who devises, adapts and collaborates with living playwrights. Selected directing: Christina Anderson’s Good Goods (O’Neill Playwrights Conference), The Tenant by Dylan Dawson, Bekah Brunstetter, Tommy Smith, Paul Cohen, Sarah Burgess, Steven Levenson (Associate director, Woodshed Collective), Exquisite Corpse (Clubbed Thumb), The Civilians’ Pretty Filthy II (Joe’s Pub) and The Divorce Tales Live (WNYC Greene Space), Joshua Elias Harmon’s Love in the Time of Channukah (Ars Nova and Hangar Theatre), Dan LeFranc’s Origin Story (Hangar Theatre), Diana Fithian’s Girls on the Clock (Summer Playwrights Rep). Her plays Apartment, Kill The Keepers (co-written with Dan LeFranc),
Darleen and Trent Go To Raj Palace and hoisington, kansas have been developed by P73, Culture Project, New Georges, Perishable Theater, and foolsFURY. Founding artistic director of HummingbirdWORKS, she has performed with Redmoon Theater, Shadowlight, Bread and Puppet Theater, Intersection for the Arts, foolsFURY and others. She has developed new plays by Erik Ehn, Kate E. Ryan, Kim Rosenstock, Jon Kern, Nick Jones, Michael Mitnick, Susan Stanton, Megan Mostyn-Brown, Mary Hamilton, Sam Marks, Jon Caren, Carla Ching, Mia Chung, Alexandra Collier, Martyna Majok, Joe Waechter, and others for Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Partial Comfort, The Civilians, New Dramatists, Dixon Place, A.R.T., Lincoln Center Directors Lab, The Tank, and Brown University/A.R.T. Institute Bakeoff. University directing: Tartuffe (Brown University); Romeo and Juliet and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (Hunter College); several plays for the Harvard Playwrights Festival. Brown/Trinity Rep: Christina Anderson’s Inked Baby, Mallery Avidon’s fracture/mechanics, The Maids, Elektra (adaptation by Mia Rovegno), Polaroid Stories, 365 Days/365 Plays and others. Both on and off-Broadway, Mia has assisted Daniel Sullivan, Ken Rus Schmoll, Chris Bayes, Anne Kauffman and others. She is a recipient of the P73 Yale Summer Residency, MTC’s Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship, SDC Directing Observership, and 2010 Ockrent Directing Fellowship nominee; Alum of the Drama League, Soho Rep
Writer/Director Lab and Lincoln Center Directors Lab; Member of The Civilians R and D Group and The Jam (New Georges Affiliated Artist); Former teaching fellow and guest lecturer at Brown University and adjunct faculty at New College of California; currently Assistant Professor in the Hunter College Theatre Dept. BS: Northwestern. MFA: Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium under the mentorship of Bonnie Metzgar, Paula Vogel, Lisa D’Amour, Kevin Moriarty, and Loretta Greco. Upcoming projects: Burnt Umber by Erik Ehn (LaMaMa), nothin’s gonna change my world (Civilians R&D Group).

NICOLE A. WATSON
Contact : watson.nicolea at gmail.com

Nicole is a freelance director and educator. She has a BA in history from Yale and an MA in interdisciplinary studies from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She recently directed a touring production of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona with the 52nd Street Project Teen Ensemble (The University of Calgary and the Banff Performing Arts Center). Other credits include Kelley Girod’s Ambrosia (Made @ Horse Trade), Melisa Tien’s Adult Beginner Swim (Culturefix, NYC), Harrison David Rivers’ Delicious (48 Hours in Harlem), Jack Moore’s Killing John Grisham (2001 NYC Fringe Festival), BlindSight: A Melodic Hypothesis (Co-Wrote and Directed for the Women Center Stage Festival), Light Sweet Crude, (Subjective Theatre Company), Homage 3:Illmatic (Black River Performing Arts Center), a workshop of Oyamo’s new musical White Hot Black Spice (New Dramatists, NYC), Crystal Skillman’s Flow (Working Theater Director’s Salon), Deconstruction by Anne Phelan (Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn), Reverb by Radha Blank (The Fire This Time Festival), Traffic Jam (Secret Theatre, NYC), One Minute-Play Festival (Here Arts Center, NYC), Derek Walcott’s Ti- Jean and His Brothers (NYU-Tisch School of the Arts, NYC), Foreclosure (NYTE at the Access Theatre, NYC), David Hilder’s Just Exactly Like (The Flea, NYC), Daniel McCoy’s Eli and Cheryl Jump (2009 Fringe Festival, NYC), The Snow Queen (Urban Stages on Tour, NYC), and The Fantastiks (The Cathedral School, NYC). Nicole was an invited artist at the 2011 Voice and Visions Retreat where she worked with Dominique Morisseau on Paradise Blue. She was also a collaborator on Indomitable: James Brown, the Music, the Man (Apollo Theater Salon Series). She has worked at the Lark, Signature Theater, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. Nicole is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, and a co-founder and curator of Working Theater’s Directors Salon.