Board of Directors November Meet-up

Join Us The Third Weekend of Each Month for The Board of Directors Monthly Meet-up

The Board of Directors is a community of Theatre Makers that come together to share stories, provide mentorship, and be generally available for each other, which will take place on Zoom, the third weekend of each month. For more details about times, please see below.

What is it? 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. Participants can come and go as they please. If you cannot attend the entire session, you are welcome to arrive late or leave early. 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.

Board of Directors Founder and Host Adam Marple will moderate the discussion. All questions about the craft of Directing and Making Theatre are welcome and can be asked of Adam or put to the group as a whole.

All Times for the November 22/23 Session (1 hour 30 min)

San Francisco, USA Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 7:00 am PST

Mexico City, Mexico Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 9:00 am CST

New York, USA Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 10:00 am EST

London, UK Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 3:00 pm GMT

Cairo, Egypt Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 5:00 pm EET

Singapore. Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 11:00 pm SGT

Melbourne, Australia Sun, Nov 23, 2025 at 2:00 am AEDT

Board of Directors Episode 4: Joe Deer

Joe Deer is the award-winning director and choreographer of over 200 productions - from Off-Broadway to London, regional to summer stock, international, and university stages. His projects vary from new works in Matera, Italy, to operas, classic plays, and musicals at some of the world's finest theaters and training centers.  Joe is a former Chair and Artistic Director of the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures at Wright State University (Dayton, OH), where he is the Distinguished Professor of Musical Theatre (emeritus). Joe was Director of The Musical Theatre Initiative at Wright State, an international center founded to celebrate and explore the history, culture, and craft of this art form. For 20 years, he was Founding Head of Wright State's Musical Theatre Program. His students populate Broadway, national tour, regional, and international stages and have won numerous Tony and Olivier Awards.

Joe began his career as a street busker in New York’s Shubert Alley and eventually appeared in the Broadway and touring productions of Anything Goes, The American Dancemachine, Singin' In The Rain, NYC Opera’s acclaimed productions of Brigadoon and The Music Man.  Off-Broadway shows include Rainbow, Subway Series (with NYC Tapworks), and Music, Rhythm and Tap (at Brooklyn Academy of Music). He also appeared at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center Honors. Joe’s stage managing credits include the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, regional productions of Lend Me A Tenor, productions for New York’s Playwrights’ Horizons, and as a production assistant on the first workshop of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins.

Joe received the Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts in Arts Education (2016), Wright State University’s Trustees’ Award for Faculty Excellence, and the College of Liberal Arts Award for Faculty Excellence (2014), more than three dozen regional awards for best production or direction, and was inducted into the Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame. He was the founding President of the Musical Theatre Educators Alliance, from whom he received a Career Achievement Award for his ongoing commitment to Musical Theatre education. Joe is a frequent guest artist and master teacher at the world's finest institutions, including the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London, England), Danish Academy of Musical Theatre, Stage School (Hamburg, GE), Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama (Wales), Sheridan College (Canada), Scuola del Teatro Musicale (Milan, Italy) and many of the top training programs in the US (Carnegie Mellon University, North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music and many others). He has presented workshops for thousands of students and teachers across the globe. In the Dayton (Ohio) region, he proudly affiliates with The Muse Machine, where he has been a frequent director and teacher, and The Human Race Theatre Company, where he's a Resident Artist. He holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.

Joe is author of dozens of articles on theatre and education, the book, Directing In Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide (revised and expanded second edition coming in early 2026), and the definitive textbook on its subject, Acting In Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course (with Rocco Dal Vera), which has been translated into Portuguese, Korean, Italian, Spanish and upcoming and Chinese editions, with a revised fourth English edition in process.

http://www.joedeer.net/

Board of Directors Episode 3: Mei Ann Teo

Mei Ann Teo (they/them) is a queer immigrant from Singapore, an artistic leader, theatre maker, and educator whose work bridges the intersections of the artistic, the civic, and the contemplative. As a director, deviser, and dramaturg, Teo creates across genres, from music theatre and reimagined classics to intermedial participatory projects and documentary theatre, always with a deep curiosity for how performance can reimagine our shared world.

Teo has directed and developed an extraordinary range of productions across the U.S. and internationally. Their directing credits include Jillian Walker’s SKiNFoLK: An American Show at The Bushwick Starr; Ruth Tang’s Building A Character with Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai at Wild Rice’s Singapore Theatre Festival; and Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong, which premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe before touring nationally to Woolly Mammoth, The Public, Seattle Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Goodman, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Folger Shakespeare Library. Teo also directed the North American premiere of Amy Berryman’s Walden at TheatreWorks Hartford, which swept the Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including Best Production and Best Director.

Internationally, Teo directed the world premiere of Dim Sum Warriors at Theatre Above in Shanghai, written by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, composed by Pulitzer Prize–winner Du Yun, which went on to tour 25 cities across China. Their documentary and socially engaged work includes the acclaimed Lyrics from Lockdown by Bryonn Bain (touring Belgium’s Festival de Liège, Singapore’s M1 Festival, National Black Theatre, and U.S. prisons and universities) and Labyrinth for the Beijing International Festival, named one of the Top 8 Productions by Beijing News.

A recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Josephine Abady Award and the inaugural Lily Fan Director Lilly Award, Teo has served as Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory, Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and now as Artistic Director of New Work at Ping Chong and Company, carrying forward the company’s legacy into a new era under the banner of “Pink Fang.”

Across continents, disciplines, and communities, Mei Ann Teo’s work continues to challenge, heal, and expand our understanding of what theatre can be — a space where art and justice meet, and where the stories of the diaspora, the queer body, and the collective imagination are given bold and resonant life.

Learn more at meiannteo.com.

Board of Directors Episode 2: Shaun Patrick Tubbs

In this episode, director and actor Shaun Patrick Tubbs joins us to talk about his journey through the worlds of theatre, opera, and new play development. This path has taken him from Wright State to Juilliard, from Miami to New York, from performing center stage to shaping stories from the director’s chair.

Shaun’s directing work reflects a deep commitment to both craft and conscience. His productions include Ragtime (Union Avenue Opera), Defacing Michael Jackson (Miami New Drama), The Tempest and Life Is a Dream (Juilliard), Sweat (Wright State University), Black Dick (New York Theatre Workshop), Independence Eve (Signature Theatre DC), hop thA A (Ars Nova), Artney Jackson (The Lark/New Black Festival), and Disgraced (Asolo Repertory Theatre). Each work he approaches reveals a director attuned to rhythm, character, and the political heart of storytelling — a sensibility born from years of listening as an actor and creating as a collaborator.

As a performer, Shaun has appeared in Terminus (New York Theatre Workshop), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged (Human Race Theatre), My Mañana Comes (Manhattan Theatre Club), and The Book of Grace (Zachary Scott Theatre). His range as an artist — from classical to contemporary, comedic to deeply human — reflects his belief that theatre at its best is an act of empathy and invitation.

A recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, Shaun holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and a BFA from Wright State University. He is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), and SAG-AFTRA.

Shaun’s artistry is grounded in both rigorous training and radical openness. Whether directing a new work or reimagining a classic, he asks the same questions: What does this story demand of us now? How do we create space for transformation, not just performance? And what happens when artists bring their whole selves to the work, intellect, heart, humor, and history?

In conversation, Shaun is as generous and thoughtful as his directing suggests, exploring how identity and experience shape artistic choices, how collaboration becomes a political act, and how storytelling can hold a mirror up to both beauty and discomfort. His career is a testament to a life lived in dialogue with the art form itself.

Discover more about his work at shaunpatricktubbs.com.

Board of Directors Episode 1: Anne Bogart

Director, Professor, and writer Anne Bogart has led the Directing concentration at Columbia University's School of the Arts' Theatre program for over 30 years—almost as long as the concentration has been in existence. 

While her reputation off-campus precedes her as the co-founder of the renowned SITI Theatre Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992, and the revolutionary Viewpoints acting method, on campus, she is known for her extraordinary dedication to her students and their success. 

She is the recipient of four Honorary Doctorates from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Skidmore College, Bard College, and Cornish College. She was a recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the Richard B. Fisher Award, a USA Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and received the 2016 Alfred Drake Award from Brooklyn College. 

Works with SITI include Radio Christmas Carol, Falling & Loving, The Bacchae, Chess Match, The Theater is a Blank Page, Steel Hammer, Persians, A Rite, Café Variations, Trojan Women, American Document, Antigone, Freshwater, Under Construction, Who Do You Think You Are, Radio Macbeth, Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman, La Dispute, Score, bobrauschenbergamerica, Room, War of the Worlds, Cabin Pressure, The Radio Play, Alice’s Adventures, Culture of Desire, Bob, Going, Going, Gone, Small Lives/Big Dreams, The Medium, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Miss Julie, and Orestes. Operas include Tristan and Isolde, The Handmaid’s Tale, Alcina, Macbeth, Norma, Carmen, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Nicholas and Alexandra, Marina: A Captive Spirit, Lilith, and Seven Deadly Sins. 

Bogart is the author of six books: A Director Prepares, The Viewpoints Book, And Then, You Act, Conversations with Anne, What’s the Story, and, most recently, The Art of Resonance.