2020 WTF Fellowship Recipients

Williamstown Theatre Festival Fellowships are fast-paced, artistically charged incubators for bold new work and the next generation of theatrical artists. For decades, the WTF Fellowship program has served as a launching pad for emerging theatre artists. Past fellowship recipients include May Adrales, Oliver Butler, Evan Cabnet, Carolyn Cantor, Davis McCallum, Patricia McGregor, Lila Neugebauer, and Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

In 2020, WTF has engaged fellowship recipients Charlie Barnett IV, Maya Davis, and Tyler Thomas in an artistic track that deepens the Festival’s relationship with them and highlights their work and accomplishments, even in these unprecedented times. Each will be given space and time in a New York City rehearsal studio (when allowed by local and state guidelines) to work on a project of their choosing. As part of the unprecedented collaboration between WTF and Audible, each will have the opportunity to join a WTF Season on Audible production as assistant director.

For more information about WTF Fellowships, click here.

J. MICHAEL FRIEDMAN FELLOWSHIP

CHARLIE BARNETT IV

Charlie Barnett is a Brooklyn based theatre artist. As a costume designer and technician, Charlie has worked with the Williamstown Theatre Festival (Wardrobe Supervisor and Costume Designer), Troy Foundry Theatre (Resident Costume Designer), and the Theatre Institute at Sage (Costume Designer). Most recent credits include: The Headlands (LCT3), (A)loft Modulation (The american vicarious), A Walrus in the Body of a Crocodile (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Saturday Morning Cartoons with Cereal (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Yellow; 100 Years; Prohibition Project: Illium Was; and Catastrophe Carnivale: An Evening of Beckett Shorts (Troy Foundry Theatre). The latter of which he won the Broadway World Award-Best Costume Design for his work.

BORIS SAGAL DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP

MAYA DAVIS

Maya Davis is a mixed-race NYC-based director and producer originally from the DC area. She is focused on creating works that are inclusive and accessible, with a specific interest in community-engaged theater. She recently directed MJ Kaufman’s Walrus in the Body of a Crocodile, Chris Herbie Holland’s Saturday Morning Cartoons with Cereal, and Mona Pirnot’s Private as the inaugural J. Michael Friedman Fellow at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Maya has directed, assisted, and produced in NYC at institutions including The Flea, The Public Theater, National Black Theater, The Tank, The Drawing Center, and Fordham Theatre Program, and regionally at Williamstown Theatre Festival and The Big Sky Theatre Company. Maya is the Artistic Associate of Two Headed Rep, a NYC company that produces new plays in repertory with the classic plays that inspire them. She is currently a Community Engagement Artist at Williamstown Theater Festival. Playwrights Horizons ’18-’19 Directing Fellow. Alumna of Fordham University.

BILL FOELLER DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP

TYLER THOMAS

Tyler Thomas is a director and choreographer. Her work has been shown at the New Ohio, The Flea Theater, NYMF, HERE Arts Center, Paradise Factory, Signature Theater with Columbia University, and at various theaters across NYU Tisch. Through the reconstitution of formal elements of dance, theater, and film, Tyler seeks to create imaginative, communal events that explode the pedestrian and elevate what is deeply human, and thus deeply shared, among us. As an associate and assistant, she has worked with directors such as Lear deBessonet, Taibi Magar, Whitney White, Young Jean Lee, Lee Sunday Evans, and Niegel Smith. Tyler is a former SDCF Observer, member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, Visiting Artist at the Athens Conservatoire in Greece, Resident Director at The Flea, and current 2050 NYTW Fellow. She holds a BFA in Drama and MA in Arts Politics from NYU Tisch. Tyler is from a small town in Louisiana that she, in many ways, has never left.