Nela Wagman

A respected New York stage director and producer, Nela Wagman is a mother of two who has recently returned to acting. Her accomplishments include establishing the Watermark Theater, which gained recognition as one of the resident theater companies inhabiting Soho’s historic Ohio Theater. As artistic director, Nela Wagman produced new works and collaborated with noted playwrights such as Josh Kornbluth, Dael Orlandersmith, and Patricia Scanlon. With Watermark Theater, she also coproduced the WordFire Festival of Solo Performance and directed Susan Miller’s My Left Breast. The OBIE award-winning play has since been performed in more than two dozen cities across America.

Ms. Wagman studied at Harvard University and began her career while still an undergraduate as an actor with the American Repertory Theater. The first woman to undertake a special concentration in Dramatic Literature at Harvard, Ms. Wagman graduated cum laude and subsequently acted with a number of companies. Working under artistic director Bill Rauch with the Cornerstone Theater Company, she played Helena in a production of A Midsummer-Night's Dream that toured nationwide and earned plaudits from the Boston Globe as one of the year’s best productions.