Megan Sandberg-Zakian is a theater-maker based in Providence, Rhode Island. Favorite recent
directing projects include the Boston premiere of Tarell McCraney's The Brother Sister Plays at Company One in Boston, Lydia Diamond’s Harriet
Jacobs at Underground Railway Theatre in Cambridge, MA (Elliot Award Nominee: Best New Play; IRNE Award Nominee: Best Ensemble, Best Actress) and the RI premiere of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Perishable Theatre/Trinity Repertory Company (Motif Awards: Best Production, Best Set Design). Megan has also directed and
developed work at venues including The Huntington Theatre (Boston), Portland
Stage (Maine), HERE Arts Center (NYC), The Culture Project (NYC), Middlebury
Actors’ Workshop (Vermont), 37 Por Las Tablas (Santiago, DR) and The Providence
Black Rep (Providence).
Megan is a current recipient of TCG's Future Leaders grant, during which she will spend two seasons at Cambridge's Central Square Theater, collaborating on a constellation of development and production projects engaging artists, audiences, and local organizations.
From 2005 to 2009, Megan was the Associate Director at The Providence Black Repertory Company, where she focused on audience and artist development, including establishing the First Look Reading Series for New Plays in Development and initiating Black Rep’s Affiliate Artist program, intended to provide local artists, particularly artists of color, with support, resources, and professional development opportunities. Before relocating to Rhode Island, Megan was the Associate Artistic Director of The 52nd Street Project, a theater company dedicated to producing original plays created through collaborations between the youth of NYC's Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood and professional adult theater artists.
In addition to her artistic practice, Megan works as an organizational consultant specializing in
community-based arts organizations, youth development through the arts,
and culturally specific arts programming. Published research and writing includes an article on youth theatre in Africa (which originally appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of the ASSITEJ-USA journal TYA Today and was reprinted in serial form in Namibia's New Era newspaper, as well as on the African Children and Youth Theater Arena (ACYTA) website), the article "Arising From Sullen Earth: The 52nd Street Project's Transformative Teen Shakespeare Program" (Teaching Artist Journal, August 2010), and the forward to Lydia Diamond's Harriet Jacobs (Northwestern University Press, 2011). She has been part of the Resident Artist program at Perishable Theatre, and teaches performance-making in community in the Theatre and Performance Studies department at Brown University
Megan is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary
Arts from Goddard College.
