The Drama League has revealed newly expanded offerings within its longstanding suite of fellowships, residences and assistantships known as the Directors Project. Applications are now open for the 2026-2027 Directors Project, which supports emerging and established stage directors.
The Drama League’s Stage Directing Fellowships, which offer emerging directors $100,000 scholarship awards and two years of opportunities to observe, assist and direct at various New York and regional theaters, including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Stage and Film, Playwrights’ Center, Red Bull Theater and Lincoln Center Theater, the latter of which is a new addition.
The FutureNow Fellowships, a partnership with Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), will now support pairs of director-playwright collaborators. The fellowship will give artists the opportunity to develop a new play that culminates with a workshop production as part of CTC’s summer 2026 season.
New to the League’s slate of offerings is the Directors Retreat, which will offer mentorship for directing fellows at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
In a new partnership with Hubbard Hall Center for the Arts and Education, the Drama League will expand its director-centered new work residencies. Hubbard Hall, located in Cambridge, New York, will also host two brand-new Drama League initiatives: The (Re)Envision Residency, which supports directors reimagining works from the public domain or antiquity, and the (Re)Engage Residency, which invites the nearly 500 alumni of the Directors Project to return to the Drama League to develop a new project with their collaborators.
Also newly revealed are the three directors who will be taking Directors Project assistant directors as part of the Irene Gandy Directing Assistantships: Lili-Anne Brown, Melissa Crespo and Timothy Douglas.
Finally, the Drama League’s Director Services has expanded, which now includes rehearsal rental space (which is subsidized in part by the New York State Council on the Arts), director referrals directing workshops and pathway chats and a career strategy service for directors seeking counsel, guidance and coaching.
