The Public Theater has announced its newest leaders, Amrita Ramanan and Chiara Klein. Ramanan is the Off-Broadway theatre's new Director of New Work Development while Klein serves as its new Director of Producing and Artistic Planning.
Ramanan served as Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Director of Literary Development and Dramaturgy for five seasons where she supported new play commissioning, new play development, and season planning, as well as created OSF’s inaugural Writer’s Group. Most recently, she worked as Senior Cultural Strategist and Dramaturg for Play On Shakespeare and the 2021- 2022 Interim Fellowship Associate/Core Apprentice Dramaturg at the Playwrights’ Center.
Returning to The Public, Klein recently served as Director of Artistic Producing at Baltimore Center Stage for the past three years. Prior to her work there, she led the creation of The Public's first national Mobile Unit initiative, which launched in the fall of 2018 with a five-state tour of Lynn Nottage’s Sweat.
“Amrita Ramanan has established herself as an exciting leader in the American theater," said Artistic Director Oskar Eustis in a statement. "Her dedication to the values The Public embodies has been visible at every stage of her career. She will be a major addition to our artistic leadership.
"The return of Chiara Klein to The Public as Director of Producing and Artistic Planning is a joyous homecoming for one of our most brilliant alums. Chiara is tremendously smart, profoundly collaborative, and has the energy and the leadership skills to elevate our entire theater. These two leaders add inestimably to The Public’s depth and strength.”
The Public's new directors also reflected on joining the theatre's artistic team in their own statements. “I look forward to expanding my support to the global storytelling community as the Director of New Work Development and collaborating with The Public company on creating dynamic, thought-provoking, joyful, healing, and vital artistic programming in this next chapter of The Public’s trajectory,” said Ramanan.
"Our field is grappling with profound questions about how to best activate our values in our practice, how to collaborate with one another to uplift us all, and how to bend our innovation toward making human-centered, joyful, inclusive art," Klein said. "I am honored to build on the formidable legacy of producing at The Public, I am thrilled to have the chance to deliver and deepen the institution’s expansive vision of art for all, and I am so excited to bring all of my energy and experience back to my hometown."
