Acadia Barrengos (she/her) is a New York-based director whose work excavates lost histories and engages audiences viscerally. In addition to NYC, she has worked in Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and New Jersey.

Inspired by the study of epigenetics, Acadia is driven by stories that wrestle with inheritance. Her work prioritizes surprise, ensemble, and rhythm. Acadia’s work walks the line of hope and doubt, and investigates the space between the pedestrian and spectral, the bloody and the magical.

B.F.A in Directing from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Minor in Arts Entrepreneurship.

https://www.acadiabarrengos.com/

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This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.

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Music: Purple Planet Music

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Joe Deer is the award-winning director and choreographer of over 200 productions - from Off-Broadway to London, regional to summer stock, international, and university stages. His projects vary from new works in Matera, Italy, to operas, classic plays, and musicals at some of the world's finest theaters and training centers. Joe is a former Chair and Artistic Director of the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures at Wright State University (Dayton, OH), where he is the Distinguished Professor of Musical Theatre (emeritus). Joe was Director of The Musical Theatre Initiative at Wright State, an international center founded to celebrate and explore the history, culture, and craft of this art form. For 20 years, he was Founding Head of Wright State's Musical Theatre Program. His students populate Broadway, national tour, regional, and international stages and have won numerous Tony and Olivier Awards.

Joe began his career as a street busker in New York’s Shubert Alley and eventually appeared in the Broadway and touring productions of Anything Goes, The American Dancemachine, Singin' In The Rain, NYC Opera’s acclaimed productions of Brigadoon and The Music Man. Off-Broadway shows include Rainbow, Subway Series (with NYC Tapworks), and Music, Rhythm and Tap (at Brooklyn Academy of Music). He also appeared at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center Honors. Joe’s stage managing credits include the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, regional productions of Lend Me a Tenor, and productions for New York’s Playwrights’ Horizons, as well as serving as a production assistant on the first workshop of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins.

Joe received the Ohio Governor’s Award for the Arts in Arts Education (2016), Wright State University’s Trustees’ Award for Faculty Excellence, and the College of Liberal Arts Award for Faculty Excellence (2014), more than three dozen regional awards for best production or direction, and was inducted into the Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame. He was the founding President of the Musical Theatre Educators Alliance, from whom he received a Career Achievement Award for his ongoing commitment to Musical Theatre education. Joe is a frequent guest artist and master teacher at the world's finest institutions, including the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London, England), Danish Academy of Musical Theatre, Stage School (Hamburg, GE), Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama (Wales), Sheridan College (Canada), Scuola del Teatro Musicale (Milan, Italy) and many of the top training programs in the US (Carnegie Mellon University, North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music and many others). He has presented workshops for thousands of students and teachers worldwide. In the Dayton (Ohio) region, he proudly affiliates with The Muse Machine, where he has been a frequent director and teacher, and The Human Race Theatre Company, where he's a Resident Artist. He holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.

Joe is the author of the book, Directing In Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide (revised and expanded second edition coming in early 2026), and the definitive textbook on its subject, Acting In Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course (with Rocco Dal Vera)

This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.

Support the show

Music: Purple Planet Music

Send us a text

Mei Ann Teo (they/them) is a queer immigrant from Singapore, an artistic leader, theatre maker, and educator whose work bridges the intersections of the artistic, the civic, and the contemplative. As a director, deviser, and dramaturg, Teo creates across genres, from music theatre and reimagined classics to intermedial participatory projects and documentary theatre, always with a deep curiosity for how performance can reimagine our shared world.

Teo has directed and developed an extraordinary range of productions across the U.S. and internationally. Their directing credits include Jillian Walker’s SKiNFoLK: An American Show at The Bushwick Starr; Ruth Tang’s Building A Character with Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai at Wild Rice’s Singapore Theatre Festival; and Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong, which premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe before touring nationally to Woolly Mammoth, The Public, Seattle Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Goodman, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Folger Shakespeare Library. Teo also directed the North American premiere of Amy Berryman’s Walden at TheatreWorks Hartford, which swept the Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including Best Production and Best Director.

Internationally, Teo directed the world premiere of Dim Sum Warriors at Theatre Above in Shanghai, written by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, composed by Pulitzer Prize–winner Du Yun, which went on to tour 25 cities across China. Their documentary and socially engaged work includes the acclaimed Lyrics from Lockdown by Bryonn Bain (touring Belgium’s Festival de Liège, Singapore’s M1 Festival, National Black Theatre, and U.S. prisons and universities) and Labyrinth for the Beijing International Festival, named one of the Top 8 Productions by Beijing News.

A recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Josephine Abady Award and the inaugural Lily Fan Director Lilly Award, Teo has served as Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory, Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and now as Artistic Director of New Work at Ping Chong and Company, carrying forward the company’s legacy into a new era under the banner of “Pink Fang.”

Across continents, disciplines, and communities, Mei Ann Teo’s work continues to challenge, heal, and expand our understanding of what theatre can be — a space where art and justice meet, and where the stories of the diaspora, the queer body, and the collective imagination are given bold and resonant life.

Learn more at meiannteo.com.

This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world.

Support the show

Music: Purple Planet Music