Megan Sandberg-Zakian is a freelance theater director based in Jamaica Plain, MA, and a co-founder of Maia Directors, a consulting group for artists and organizations engaging with stories from the Middle East and beyond. She has previously served as the Associate Artistic Director of Underground Railway Theater (Cambridge, MA), the Providence Black Repertory Company (RI), and The 52nd Street Project (NYC), and is currently the Director-in-Residence at Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) in Lowell, MA., focusing on the nurturing and development of new plays and playwrights. Megan is a recipient of the Princess Grace Theater Award and the TCG Future Leaders fellowship, an alumna of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and a proud member of SDC. She is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College.
Recent directing projects include the world premiere of Nathan Alan Davis' Nat Turner in Jerusalem at New York Theatre Workshop, the world premiere of Eleanor Burgess' Chill at MRT, and Dominque Morisseau's Skeleton Crew at The Huntington Theatre Company. Other favorite projects include: Marco Ramirez' The Royale at MRT (IRNE Award, Best Production & Best Director), Danai Gurira's The Convert at Underground Railway Theatre (Elliot Norton Award, Outstanding Production; IRNE Award, Best Production & Best Director), the world premiere of The Broken Record at FringeNYC (Overall Excellence Award), the Boston premiere of Tarell McCraney's The Brother Sister Plays at Company One in Boston (IRNE Award: Best Production), 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).
In addition to her artistic practice, Megan works as an organizational consultant specializing in connecting arts organizations more deeply to their communities, and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiatives. 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. 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, and part of the first ever TCG Diversity and Inclusion Institute. She published "The Ferguson Theater Syllabus" in American Theatre magazine, co-authored with Claudia Alick, and is the creator/admin of a resource for identifying diverse theater designers and technicians. She's proud to have authored the forwards to Lydia Diamond's Harriet Jacobs (Northwestern University Press, 2011) and Chantal Bilodeau's Sila (Talonbooks, 2015).
Megan was born and raised in Seattle, and now lives in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston with her wife Candice. She enjoys keeping orchids alive, bird-watching, and searching for outstanding gluten-free baked goods.