Kirsten Greenidge Named CFA School of School of Theatre’s Next Director
Kirsten Greenidge Named CFA School of Theatre’s Next Director
Greenidge, a playwright and associate professor, works to uplift and center the stories of those who have not traditionally seen themselves on stage in both her own work and the work of her students
Boston University College of Fine Arts announces the appointment of Kirsten Greenidge as the next director of the School of Theatre effective July 1, 2024.
Kirsten Greenidge, a playwright and associate professor at CFA School of Theatre, is known for such works as The Luck of the Irish, Baltimore and the Obie Award-winning and Lucille Lortell nominated Milk Like Sugar. A PEN/Laura Pels Playwrighting Award recipient, she is honored to have been named Playwright Laureate of Boston. She is currently a Howlround/Mellon Foundation Artist-in-Residence at Company One Theatre, in Boston, where she facilitates Company One’s Volt Writer’s Lab and its Open Write Playwrighting series. She is also a Huntington Playwrighting Fellow and a New Dramatists alum.
Kirsten is known for work that places hyper-realism on stage as it examines the nexus of race, class, gender, and the black American experience. Her work has been developed and produced at the Huntington, American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T), Writer’s Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, LTC3 (Lincoln Center), Yale Repertory Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, Lyric Stage, Boston Lyric Opera, The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, The O’Neill, Playwrights Horizons, The SPACE at Ryder Farm, Sundance Theatre Lab, and others.
Kirsten believes strongly in the importance of community and collaboration in theatre-making and in the playwright’s process. She works to uplift and center the stories of those who have not traditionally seen themselves on stage in both her own work and the work of all her students, in conversation with their embodied experience. During her years at CFA School of Theatre, she has founded and maintains SOT’s New Works, which includes First Pages, Springboard Reading Series, and Next Stage Workshops and Productions. Combined, these development experiences are designed to steward new plays though first inception to realization in bodies and space, while engaging students in the challenging exercise of developing new work for the stage with their artistic peers.
“Kirsten Greenidge is an accomplished, in-demand playwright whose writings are transforming American theatre,” says Dean Harvey Young. “As a mentor, educator and champion of new works, she is the right person to lead the development of a new generation of theatre artists.”
Greenidge will begin her work as director this summer, and will hold title of Director of CFA School of Theatre for an anticipated three-year term.
School directorships rotate among senior faculty. The College thanks and will soon celebrate Susan Mickey, who has led CFA School of Theatre for the past five years.