Emily Mann

Director / Playwright  

Emily Mann is a Tony-nominated director and playwright and a Tony Award-winning Artistic Director.  In her 30 years as Artistic Director and Resident Playwright at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, she wrote 15 new plays and adaptations, directed over 50 productions, produced 180 plays and musicals, and supported and directed the work of emerging and legendary playwrights including Ntozake Shange, Athol Fugard, Edward Albee, Christopher Durang, Nilo Cruz, Joyce Carol Oates, Tarell Alvin McCraney and Danai Gurira and is known for her productions of Williams, Lorca, Chekhov, and Shakespeare.  On Broadway, she directed her own plays Execution of Justice and Having Our Say, Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics and A Streetcar Named Desire.  Her other plays include: Still Life; Annulla, An Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard;  Gloria: A Life which aired on PBS’  Great Performances. and The Pianist, a play with music. Her adaptations include: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Antigone.  She recently premiered On Cedar Street, a new musical co-written with Lucy Simon, Carmel Dean and Susan Birkenhead.  Awards include: Peabody, Guggenheim, Hull Warriner, NAACP, 6 Obies; Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, WGA nominations; Princeton University Honorary Doctorate of Arts; Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwrights’ Award; Margo Jones Award; TCG Visionary Leadership Award; The Lilly Award and Gordon Davidson Awards both for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.  She has recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Dramatists Guild in Playwriting and is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild Council.  She has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Theater Hall of Fame. She has just completed writing a new play, Code Red, due for production in the coming year.