Bio
Dina Vovsi is a New York-based director, writer, and theatermaker.
Currently, she is a member of the 2022-2024 WP Theater Directors Lab, the 2023 New Georges Jam, and the Roundabout Directors Group. She is a 2023 Brooklyn Arts Council Grantee, receiving Brooklyn Arts Fund and Local Arts Support Grants for her upcoming project Canoe Play, and a SU-CASA Grant for The Inspiration Project at JASA Senior Center in Coney Island.
Other works as a director and creator include Love Is…[Kocham Cię] (a 2022 Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA Grant recipient and collaboration with Pete McGuinness Senior Center in Greenpoint, Brooklyn), Show Me, a site-responsive audio play, and I’m Gonna Keep You Alive (in collaboration with Amanda Marikar), both with The Motor Company, as well as Untitled Parlor Play, or, For Home Amusement (Access Theater Residency, co-created with Kyle Metzger in collaboration with a company of artists) and everything’s whispered (for now). With the support of a NYSCA grant, Dina is the recipient of a Working Theater 5 Boroughs 1 City Initiative commission, currently developing a play about the Russian-speaking and Pakistani immigrant communities in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn with playwright Liba Vaynberg. With theater artists Rachel Gita Karp, Deneen Reynolds-Knott, and Emerie Snyder, Dina co-created a site-specific, traveling theatrical experience across Fort Greene, Brooklyn in October 2021 called EXITS, collaborating with playwright Ran Xia to activate Greenlight Bookstore. The recipient of a 2021 Brooklyn Arts Council Grant and a New Georges Supported Production, EXITS was an audio-theatrical experience that used physical distance and aural intimacy to connect audiences with beloved Fort Greene spaces we departed due to COVID-19.
Other recent productions as a director include The Antelope Party, The Revolutionists, Marie Antoinette, Passage and Three Sisters (all at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), The Agency by Lia Romeo (Fairleigh Dickinson University), Sincerity Forever (The Flea), Shady Acres: a homegrown epic (Rutgers/Mason Gross MFA Playwriting), Iphigenia and Other Daughters (Long Island University), First by Faith: The Life of Mary McLeod Bethune (2019 AUDELCO Award for Best Solo Performance, Best Educational Show at United Solo, sold-out run at the National Black Theatre Festival, 14th Street Y), The Bastard (Dixon Place), and Visiting Hours (TheaterLab).
Dina has developed and directed new work with The Civilians, New Georges, Working Theater, Cape Cod Theatre Project, The Culture Project’s Women Center Stage, Dartmouth VoxFest, The Barn Arts Collective, Pipeline Theatre Company, Fresh Ground Pepper, The Motor Company, Theatre 167, FringeNYC, and The Flea. Dina was a Robert Moss Directing Fellow at Playwrights Horizons, a member of The Civilians’ R&D Group, the recipient of several Brooklyn Arts Council grants, the recipient of an SDC Foundation Observership at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, a member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, an O’Neill National Directors Fellowship Finalist, and a Mass MoCA Assets for Artists Grantee. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and teaches at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Associate and assistant directing credits include Stephen Karam’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard on Broadway with Roundabout Theatre Company, Taylor Mac’s Hir, Danai Gurira’s Familiar, Gregory S. Moss’s Indian Summer (all at Playwrights Horizons), Eugene Onegin (Spoleto Festival USA), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (HVSF/The Pearl), Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India (Ma-Yi), Stefanie Zadravec’s The Electric Baby (Quantum), The Nourish Project (WP Theater) and more.
Dina has also worked in artistic, literary, educational and producing capacities at various New York theater companies, and was the Program Coordinator of PlayTime at New Dramatists from 2016-2019.
Dina immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union (Riga, Latvia) when she was a child, and is bilingual in English and Russian. She is an alum of the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater, and Dance.
