Nicole A. Watson

Born in Jamaica and raised in New York, Nicole A. Watson is a freelance director and educator with an interest in new play development and plays that deal with the past. A former history teacher, Nicole started directing in 2008 and works in NYC as well as universities and theaters throughout the US. She was recently the Associate Artistic Director at the McCarter Theatre Center, after holding the same position at Round House Theatre for 2 1/2 years. On behalf of both theaters, she produced the Adrienne Kennedy Festival, a celebration of Kennedy’s work. For the festival, she directed a digital version of Kennedy’s She Brought Her Heart Back in a Box. During her tenure at McCarter she proposed and launched the Toni Morrison Commissions, supporting artists Daniel Alexander Jones, Mame Diara (Samantha) Speis, and Cécile McLorin Salvant as they created new work informed by time spent with Morrison’s archives. She also was a co-curator with Paula Vogel on Bard at the Gate, a digital catalog of new plays by playwrights such as Zakiyyah Alexander, Lloyd Suh, Dipika Guha, Nikki Massoud, Jose Rivera, Laura Shellhardt, Majkin Holmquist, and Joy Harjo. Nicole is a member of the New Georges Jam and has worked with New Dramatists, the Lark Play Development Center, the Fire this Time Festival, the New Black Fest, the Women's Project Theater, The 52nd Street Project, NYTW, Signature Theatre, and Working Theater. Nicole is an alum of both the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and the Women’s Project Directors Lab and a member of the SDC. BA: History, Yale. MA: NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study.