Christian Parker

Christian Parker is a director, dramaturg, and former Chair of the graduate Theatre Program (2012-19) at Columbia  University, where he also heads the Dramaturgy concentration. Recent projects include David Hare’s Skylight at Gulfshore Playhouse, workshops of Kirk Lynn’s The First Line of Dante’s Inferno at Rattlestick and his My Heart is a Library, Yours is a Museum for New Harmony Project, and Lynn Rosen’s The Imperialists for Theatre Works/Silicon Valley. Other recent productions include Laura Eason’s Sex with Strangers for City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh and Leslie Ayvazian’s Out of the City for the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts. He served as dramaturg on The Tempest for Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! program, and for the world premiere of the musical Found by Hunter Bell, Lee Overtree and Eli Bolin at the Atlantic Theater Company.

From 2001-2014 he was the Associate Artistic Director of Atlantic Theater Company, where he directed plays by Tina Howe, Ken Weitzman, Jeff Whitty, Leslie Ayvazian, Kevin Heelan, Kate Moira Ryan, and Rolin Jones. Prior to his tenure at the Atlantic, he spent several seasons as the Literary Manager at Manhattan Theatre Club. Christian has produced, directed or dramaturged over fifty premieres of new American and British plays on, off and off-off Broadway, including works by David Lindsay-Abaire, David Auburn, Cusi Cram, Keith Reddin, and Dael Orlandersmith, among others. He speaks Russian and was part of the national artistic advisory board for the CITD New Russian Plays initiative. In his first foray into the dance world, he completed a residency through the Joyce Theatre with Gallim Dance on their piece Sit. Kneel. Stand. He is a proud founding member of the new itinerant theatre company, New Neighborhood. He has worked with Sundance Theatre Institute (Utah and Morocco), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Lark Play Development Center, New York Theatre Workshop, Rising Phoenix Rep, The 24 Hour Plays, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Bread Loaf, Kenyon Playwrights Conference, where he is Resident Director, New Dramatists and Perry-Mansfield. He served on the Tony Awards Nominating Committee from 2014-2017. Recent publications include critical articles for Contemporary Theatre Review (UK) on Sam Shepard and Simon Stephens. He is currently working on two books, one based around his foundational dramaturgy course and another on leadership and ethics in the theatre. He holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA from Columbia.