Columbians Receive 2022 Classical Directing Fellowships
Alumnus Kareem Fahmy ’07 and Adjunct Assistant Professor Manoel Felciano were part of a four-member cohort for the 2022 Classical Directing Fellowship, a program of the Karen and Stuart Tanz Fellowships at The Old Globe in San Diego, California.
The Classical Directing Fellowship is a workshop series centered on Shakespearean directing led by the Old Globe’s Artistic Director, Barry Edelstein, a leading Shakespearean dramaturg. The series focuses on how Shakespeare’s language is put together and how it works in the imaginations and voices of American actors.
Fahmy told us, “As a director of color, access to opportunities in directing the classics can be hard to come by. My training at Columbia was heavily focused on the canon, but in my professional life I had to pivot into new work because that’s where I was finding work. At this inflection point in the theatre industry when we’re re-examining ways in which certain artists have been excluded, being a Classical Directing Fellow at The Old Globe was a glimmer of hope. I left this Fellowship feeling empowered and in community with my fellow directors who are trying to bring their needed perspectives to Shakespeare.”
For Felciano, the fellowship had been two years in the waiting. “I was originally awarded the Old Globe’s Classical Directing Fellowship in 2020, and then it was delayed two years due to Covid. So it was extra special to be a part of it after that long wait. It was a huge honor and pleasure to get to spend a week with my cohort learning from renowned Shakespeare scholar and Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein on how to excavate this incredible language and bring it to life for today’s theatre.”
Kareem Fahmy is a Canadian-born, New York-based theatre director, playwright, and screenwriter. He was named a “Rising Leader of Color” by TCG, and is the recipient of numerous honors, including: the Janet Sloane Residency at Yaddo, a Sundance Theatre Lab fellowship, a Phil Killian Directing Fellowship at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and a National Directors Fellowship. Kareem is currently a member of the WarnerMedia Access Writers Program and is a commissioned playwright at Artists Repertory Theatre, Colt Coeur, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. He is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab, and creator of the BIPOC Director Database.
Manoel Felciano is an actor and educator. He most recently starred Off-Broadway in The Alchemist and on Broadway as Prosecutor Horace Gilmer in Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill A Mockingbird, following his work Off-Broadway in The Secret Life of Bees at the Atlantic Theatre, directed by Sam Gold, and Lynn Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at the Signature Theater. Other appearances on Broadway include Sweeney Todd (Tony Award nominated), Amelie, Disaster!, Brooklyn, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Cabaret, and he appeared Off-Broadway in The Changeling (Red Bull Theater), Trumpery (Atlantic Theater Company), Shockheaded Peter, and Much Ado About Nothing (New York Shakespeare Festival).