Abigail Zealey Bess

Abigail Zealey Bess is an award-winning filmmaker, theatre director, and educator who hails from London with over 35 years of experience in the arts. She has directed both theatre and film, specializing in new works, since relocating to New York, where she founded her film company, Weird Sisters, initially conceived as a theatrical entity over 25 years ago. Under the auspices of her company she has developed numerous projects in collaboration with many writers both established and newly emerging on the New York scene.

Her debut film, the award-winning baseball trilogy: Play Ball! (Fanfare for A Common Man, Random Acts of Intimacy, Caught in Time) screened throughout the globe including the Berlin Film Festival, Cannes Director Fortnight, and at over 40 festivals internationally. Other projects include Mary and Louise, and Icarus Stops For Breakfast (@IcarusBreakfast) which won over 30 Best Film Awards on the 2020/21 International film festival circuit.

Recent Film Credit: The Lion (2025) starring horror icon Judith Roberts (Eraserhead, You Were Never Really Here).

She is a life member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre based in New York, one of the leading developmental theatres of new plays in the USA, and has directed and produced numerous new works home and abroad. Broadway, Off Broadway, and NY Theatre credits include The Foundry Theatre, Ohio Theatre, Soho Repertory Theatre, Abingdon Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Here, Cort Theatre, Broadway, & internationally the Edinburgh Festival, the Young Vic, the Strand Theatre, King’s Head, London. 

Recent Theatre Credits: Echo (formally titled Saugerties) King’s Head, London; Falling in Love with Mr Dellamort, Edinburgh Fringe returning to the West End in 26/27; 44 Lights, The Musical which will be remounted Off-Broadway in September 2026; Bonkers in the Boroughs by Joy Behar ’23 MMAC; I came back for Molly ‘23/24 Durango Film Fest; Elephant Woman ’23 at the Tank; The Radicalization of Rolfe, NY Fringe Winner; Paper Doll, Edinburgh Fringe; Leviticus, Edinburgh Fringe ‘18 with Sawyer Spielberg’s Theatre Company, WATG, Sloan Works in Progress -Tribeca Film Festival; The F#@%ing Wright Brothers; Spring Awakening, the Musical at NJ Shakespeare Theatre; Saugerties with Chad L. Coleman and Beau Garret, Hudson Guild in LA '19. 

She continues to head Weird Sisters developing feature film projects and theatrical ventures in NY, regionally, and in Europe devoted to the promotion of prolific women artists and writers giving voice to new thought-provoking work.

Zealey Bess is a member of Cinefemme, SDC, Actors Studio PDU, NYWIFT. She teaches on the Faculty for the Graduate Film Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, and Columbia University.

Representation: Roger Becker at Access Talent and Red Letter Management