The Drama League welcomes 12 new directing fellows, who will spend the next year participating in the organization's award-winning fellowship programs around the country. The 2019 recipients are: NJ Agwuna, Sharifa Elkady, Raz Golden, Chika Ike, Rebecca Marzalek-Kelly, Ismael Lara, Jr., Amanda McRaven, Lindsey Hope Pearlman, Ben Randle, Tai Thompson, Gabriel Torres, and Sophia Watt.

The fellows have been accepted into five different programs of study: the New York Directing Fellowships (Agwuna, Ike, Marzalek-Kelly, and Pearlman); the Hangar Directing Fellowships (Elkady, Lara Jr., McRaven, and Watt); the Classical Fellowship for Directors of Color (Golden and Thompson); the Leo Shull New Musicals Directing Fellowship (Randle); and the Public Works Fellowship (Torres).

They join the ranks of alumni that include Tony Award winners Diane Paulus, Michael Mayer, Christopher Ashley, Sam Gold, Rebecca Taichman, Pam MacKinnon, and John Rando, as well as Rachel Chavkin, Alex Timbers, Lila Neugebauer, Moritz von Steulpnagel, Arin Arbus, and more.

The fellows will be publicly introduced during the 85th Annual Drama League Awards, on May 17, 2019 at the Marriott Marquis Times Square.

“These exceptional directors are going to change the face of the American theatre, of that I’ve no doubt,” says the Drama League's executive artistic director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks. “Not only in New York, but in Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Houston, and the other places these directors call home.”