2021 WTF Fellowship Recipients

Williamstown Theatre Festival Fellowships are fast-paced, artistically charged incubators for bold new work and the next generation of theatrical artists. For decades, the WTF Fellowship program has served as a launching pad for emerging theatre artists. Past fellowship recipients include May Adrales, Oliver Butler, Evan Cabnet, Carolyn Cantor, Tatyana-Marie Carlo, Davis McCallum, Patricia McGregor, Lila Neugebauer, and Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

In 2021, WTF has engaged fellowship recipients Ryan Dobrin, JaMario Stills, and Isabel Rodriguez in an artistic track that deepens the Festival’s relationship with them and highlights their work and accomplishments, even in these unprecedented times. In 2021, each Fellowship will be awarded to an early-career artist, whom the Festival will engage as assistant director on one of our three summer productions. Learn more about our live 2021 season here. Following the summer, Fellows will be given space and time in a New York City rehearsal studio (as allowed by local and state guidelines) to work on a project of their choosing.

For more information about WTF Fellowships, click here.

J. MICHAEL FRIEDMAN FELLOWSHIP

RYAN DOBRIN

Ryan Dobrin (he/him/his) is a queer, biracial New York-based director and producer interested in the exploration of emotional growth, spectacle, otherness, human connection, and morality. He is one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of Obie Award-winning The Movement Theatre Company, a New York Directing Fellow at The Drama League, a member of the Roundabout Directors Group, and the director of Those Guilty Creatures. Previous fellowships include Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Ars Nova, as well as the 24 Hour Plays: Nationals directing cohort and NAMT’s directing program. Recent directing includes collaborations with the Atlantic Acting School, NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing, A4, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playdate Theatre, Ars Nova, and Waterwell. Ryan has served as associate or assistant to directors including Trip Cullman, Tyne Rafaeli, Margot Bordelon, Shira Milikowsky, and Miranda Haymon, and as a script assistant to The Mad Ones. His phone-based experiential short film “The Homiesexuals: a social media tragedy” written by Gage Tarlton will be released this year. Ryan graduated from Wesleyan University, where he received both the Rachel Henderson Theater Prize and the Outreach & Community Service Prize in Theater. For more: ryandobrin.com

BORIS SAGAL DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP

JAMARIO STILLS

JaMario Stills is a native of Jacksonville Florida where he attended Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and a graduate of The Juilliard School where he received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Drama. Currently, JaMario is pursuing his MFA in Directing at Brown University. He’s also the Founding Artistic Director of Phase Eight Theater Company based in Jacksonville. His professional acting career has consisted of performances at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Trinity Repertory Company and The McCarter Theatre.

BILL FOELLER DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP

ISABEL RODRIGUEZ

Isabel Rodriguez is a director from San Diego. She was a recipient of The Kennedy Center’s SDC Directing Fellowship after placing as a finalist for KCACTF’s Region VIII SDC Directing Initiative. Recent productions/workshops include: Christina by Alexis Scheer (assisted Danya Taymor, The Kennedy Center), Radial Gradient by Jasmine Sharma (Twenty by Twenty Fringe), The Party Clown by Olivia Carter (Garage Theatre Ensemble), Dust to Dust by Matthew Katterhagen (Garage Theatre Ensemble). She has also interned at The Old Globe for their productions of Romeo and Juliet (dir. Barry Edelstein) and Barefoot in the Park (dir. Jessica Stone). Isabel earned her BA in Theatre Arts/Directing at Cal State Fullerton. There, she served as the Associate Artistic Director of the BA Showcase Program, and has stage managed, directed, and designed new work. Her passion as a director is provoked by love and disillusionment, and conceptualizes Asian-American experiences with new and existing scripts. She has recently wrapped her podcast series, “INTER-RACED,” a weekly series debunking and discussing the realities of interracial relationships. she/hers www.isabel-rodriguez.com