Debra Wise
04.27.2023
Revels Associate Artistic Director Debra Wise launched Underground Railway Theater in Oberlin, Ohio with founding Artistic Director Wes Sanders. From 1978-2008, they toured original works nationally and abroad to venues ranging from Lincoln Center to public schools. After opening Central Square Theater with The Nora Theatre Company in 2008, Wise worked with playwrights Alan Brody and Jon Lipsky, and physicist/author Alan Lightman, to found Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, CST’s science theater partnership. She led partnerships with Mount Auburn Cemetery (Our Town) and the National Park Service (Roots of Liberty – The Haitian Revolution and the American Civil War, featuring actors, dancers, musicians, and guests Danny Glover, Henry Louis Gates and Edwidge Danticat). Acting appearances at CST have included: The Half-Life of Marie Curie, Vanity Fair, Homebody, Copenhagen, and Brundibar & But the Giraffe! Appearances on other Boston stages: Much Ado About Nothing (Commonwealth Shakespeare Co.); Doll’s House 2 and Escaped Alone (The Gamm); Mistero Buffo (Poets’ Theatre); Boston Marriage and Orson’s Shadow (New Repertory Theatre); People, Places & Things (Speakeasy Stage Co.); and Chosen Child (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); in NYC, The Haggadah (The Public, with Julie Taymor). Work as a playwright includes her adaptation of A Christmas Carol, States of Grace (inspired by Grace Paley’s stories); and Alice’s Adventures Underground (adapted from Lewis Carroll). She developed the curriculum Art Works for Schools with DeCordova Museum, public schools, and Harvard’s Project Zero, and collaborated with Harvard’s Graduate School of Education for 20 years. Though she continues as Program Director of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, Wise left her CST Artistic Director position in 2022, to help invite increasingly diverse leadership. She is currently Producing Artistic Director for the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Theater Project (OWRProject.org), and Associate Artistic Director for The Revels. Her third audiobook in Gregory Maguire’s return to his Wicked franchise, Another Day, will be released this fall.
dwise@revels.org
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