Megan Sandberg-Zakian is a theater-maker and a current recipient of TCG's Future Leaders grant to spend two seasons at Cambridge's Central Square Theater, collaborating on a constellation of development and production projects engaging artists, audiences, and local organizations.
Most recently, Megan co-developed and directed Danny Bryck's "docu-play" about Occupy Boston, No Room For Wishing, which was co-produced by Boston-area companies Central Square Theater, Company One and Boston Playwrights' Theatre, and is currently touring. Other recent
directing projects include co-directing the Boston premiere of Tarell McCraney's The Brother Sister Plays at Company One in Boston (IRNE Award: Best Production; IRNE nominee: Best Director; Elliot Norton Nominee: Outstanding Production), Lydia Diamond’s Harriet
Jacobs at Underground Railway Theatre in Cambridge, MA (Elliot Norton Nominee: Best New Play; IRNE 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, Best Actor). Megan has also directed and
developed work at venues including The Huntington Theatre and New Repertory 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).
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. She has taught classes and workshops in community-based performance at Brown University and Yale University, and was a co-organizer of the Fall 2011 "Making, Meaning, and Context: A Radical Reconsideration of Arts Work" Conference at Goddard College. 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). Megan is proud to be part of the current conversation on diversity and inclusion in the American theater, both nationally and in the Boston community.
Other exciting things include: member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab (2012), Resident Artist at Perishable Theatre in Providence (2009-2011), Rhode Island Council for the Humanities Fellowship (2011), TCG Observership grant (2008), ASSITEJ-USA Ann Shaw Fellowship (2004). Megan is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary
Arts from Goddard College.
