In mid-October she will join Lark's executive leadership team, which includes producing director John Clinton Eisner and managing director Michael Robertson. She assumes the role previously held by Daniella Topol, who left the job in May to pursue a freelance directing career and has since been elected to the Lark's board of trustees.

Monaghan comes to the Lark from her post as literary manager at South Coast Repertory Theatre where she spearheaded new play commissioning and development projects and served as co-director of the Pacific Playwrights Festival. In her new role at the Lark she will be responsible for overseeing artistic programs including design, execution, and assessment; assembling creative teams; implementing the artistic vision of the company; and long-range planning with Eisner, Robertson and Lark's board.

"Megan 'gets' what the Lark is all about," explains Eisner. "Throughout her career, she has been deeply in love with playwrights and new plays. She is passionate about the unique voices of artists and what they have to tell us about the world we live in and the future they envision for us. She is committed to shaping and protecting an environment in which playwrights can collaborate effectively with other artists and audiences. We are thrilled to welcome her to our dedicated and growing staff."

Monaghan's South Coast Repertory production dramaturgy credits include the world premieres of What They Have, An Italian Straw Hat, The Piano Teacher, My Wandering Boy, The Studio and The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, and productions of A Little Night Music, A Feminine Ending, Bach at Leipzig and Dumb Show.

She has previously served as the literary director of the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, the director of playwright services at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and the director of New Play Development at Frontera @ Hyde Park Theatre in Austin, TX. Her freelance directing and dramaturgy work has included projects at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, the New Harmony Project, Actors Express, Horizon Theatre, Theater Emory and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. "I am excited by the question of theatre's role in the next few decades and the kind of home that will let theatre flourish. Playwrights are at the center of this for me," stated Monaghan. "At the Lark, I want to help playwrights take risks and create their strongest, truest work. I look forward to collaborating with John and Michael to build innovative partnerships and forge ties that connect vital and engaging new plays to communities and audiences. It's a time of tremendous growth at the Lark, and I am thrilled to be part of it."

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A laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the Lark Play Development Center "provides playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work. The Lark brings together actors, directors, playwrights and the community to allow writers to learn about their own work by seeing and hearing it, and by receiving feedback from a dedicated and supportive community. The company reaches into untapped local populations and across international boundaries to seek out and embrace unheard voices and diverse perspectives, celebrating differences in language and worldviews. The Lark also plays a leading role in advancing unknown writers and their works to audiences through carefully stewarded partnerships with a host of theaters, universities, community-based organizations, and NGOs, locally, nationally and globally."

For more information, www.larktheatre.org.