Alumna Anika Chapin '14 Appointed Director of Artistic Development at Signature Theatre

By
Felix Van Kann
May 06, 2022
Anika Chapin '14

Alumna Anika Chapin '14 has joined the artistic team at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, where she is taking on the role of Director of Artistic Development. 

According to Chapin: “I couldn’t be happier to be joining the team at Signature Theatre. I have long admired Signature’s commitment to nurturing vibrant new musical talents and projects, and it’s a commitment that is needed now more than ever before. It is a challenging time for the American theatre, but there are so many exciting artists creating bold and wonderful new musicals right now, I am convinced that, to quote Sondheim, 'something is stirring.' I look forward to shepherding the future of the American musical into the present.”

Chapin was most recently the Artistic Associate and Resident Dramaturg at Goodspeed Musicals, where she developed new musicals for production, the Festival of New Musicals, and the Johnny Mercer Writers’ Grove residency program. She was previously the literary manager at New Jersey's Two River Theater and the producer of Encores! Unscripted, a discussion series about topics in theatre created by WNYC and City Center Encores! Chapin is also the co-creator and co-host of Know the Show,  a podcast about musicals, has been a guest professor at Yale University, the University of Florida, and Berklee College of Music, and taught Script and Score Analysis at Pace University. 

Founded in 1989, Signature Theatre is a Tony Award®-winning regional theater that broadens and brightens the region’s cultural landscape with its bold productions, engaging education, and outreach programs. Called a “musical theater powerhouse” by The Washington Post, Signature combines Broadway-caliber productions with intimate playing spaces and aims to be a leading force in U.S. musical theater. Since its inception, the Theatre has produced 59 world premiere works, including 19 new musical commissions, and is home to the single largest musical theater commissioning project in the United States, The American Musical Voices Project. Signature Theatre’s vision is to be the premier producer of new and innovative musical theater in the country and to serve, enrich, inspire and impact our community.