Morgan Allen is general manager, Jessica M. Sher is director of development, and Michael Lew is the Manhattan-based company's administrative associate.
Allen comes to New Dramatists after serving on the staff of Playbill.com as photo editor/editorial assistant for two-and-a-half years. As a theatre administrator, artist and producer he has worked on various projects with La MaMa e.t.c., New Georges, National Asian-American Theatre Company, 78th Street Theatre Lab, Prospect Theater Company and Vital Theatre Company. Allen is also the president and co-founder of Body Politic Theater, Inc., a non-profit which focuses on giving playwrights full productions of their work and on presenting stories of social responsibility. Additionally, he volunteers as a core-member of Theatre Without Borders.
Allen first worked with New Dramatists as an intern and is returning to the organization after graduating with a bachelor's degree in media and performing from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
As general manager, Allen will be responsible for coordinating fundraisers and special events, such as the Annual Spring Luncheon, which each year honors a major theatre artist with the New Dramatists Career Achievement Award; Board of Director and donor relations; direct mail campaigns; volunteer coordination; editing of the yearly Season Program and Tribute Journal, and overall organizational management, including bookkeeping, personnel, human resources and benefits oversight.
Sher joins the staff of New Dramatists after a two-year term as director of marketing for Abingdon Theatre Company, an Off-Off Broadway theatre dedicated to the development of new American plays. As an arts marketer, she has worked with Theatre Communications Group, Playwrights Horizons, and Central City Opera House in Central City, Colorado, and served as a fundraising assistant for Theatre Development Fund. Sher is also the Marketing and Brand Manager for Solomon Design Group, a boutique marketing and design agency focusing on the not-for-profit arts sector. She holds a master's degree in performing arts management from Brooklyn College. As director of development, Sher will manage the annual and long-range planning and administration for all fundraising activities at New Dramatists, including foundation, corporate and government grants writing. New Dramatists' former director of development, Jennie Greer, recently joined Signature Theatre Company as director of theatre advancement.
Lew is a resident playwright for both Youngblood (at Ensemble Studio Theatre) and Ma-Yi Writers' Lab (at Ma-Yi Theater). His one-woman play, Yit, Ngay (One, Two), has been published in Plays and Playwrights 2006. Assistant directing credits include Playwrights Horizons (residency), Primary Stages, Center Theatre Group, Ma-Yi, Drama Dept., and New Georges. He is a Lincoln Center Directors' Lab alumnus, and is a stage manager for Ojai Playwrights Conference. Lew is a graduate of Yale College.
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Winner of a special 2001 Tony Honor, New Dramatists' mission is to seek out and support America's talented playwrights by giving them the time, space and tools to develop their craft, so that they may fulfill their potential and make lasting contributions to the theatre. Resident playwrights have included Robert Anderson, Constance Congdon, Kia Corthron, Nilo Cruz, Horton Foote, Richard Foreman, Maria Irene Fornes, William Gibson, Philip Kan Gotanda, William Inge, Donald Margulies, Joe Masteroff, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Diana Son, Paula Vogel, Mac Wellman, August Wilson, and Doug Wright.
For more about New Dramatists, visit www.newdramatists.org.
