BIOGRAPHY
ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON (she/her/hers) is an OBIE Award-winning director, producer, dramaturg, and adapter. She is currently the Artistic Director of Geva Theatre in Rochester, NY. She has worked on Broadway, London's West End, Off-Broadway, regionally and abroad. Williamson is internationally known for her work developing and premiering major new plays and musicals, which have won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Play, and the Olivier, Critics Circle, Evening Standard, GLAAD, and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play. She also has extensive experience working on reimagined productions of Shakespeare and the classics with artists including JoAnne Akalaitis, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Doug Hughes, Lorin Maazel, Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Dominique Serrand, Darko Tresnjak , Mary Zimmerman, and others. Her own translations and adaptations include Charlotte Brontë , Molière, Marivaux and Michel Azama for Hartford Stage, Geva Theatre, the Alley Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and elsewhere.
Broadway/West End: Matthew López’ The Inheritance (Tony, Olivier, Critics Circle, Evening Standard, GLAAD, and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Honoree), A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Tony Award for Best Musical), Anastasia, Some Like It Hot. Off-Broadway/Regional includes About Face, ACT, the Alley, Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes, Court, Hartford Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Pioneer Theatre, Primary Stages, Steppenwolf, Theatre de La Jeune Lune, the Vineyard, Westport Country Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Young Vic in London.
She previously served as Associate Artistic Director/Director of New Play Development for both Hartford Stage and Pioneer Theatre Company, commissioning and developing work by Kaneza Schaal, Bess Wohl, Matthew López, Sarah Gancher, Kyle Jarrow, Wendy MacLeod, Dan O’Brien, Mfoniso Udofia, Octavio Solis, Robert Freedman and Scott Frankel, Terence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and many others. She is particularly proud of launching Hartford Stage's Community Engagement Initiatives during her time at the company.
Education: M.St., Oxford University, B.A., Bennington College, trained at the École Internationale de Théàtre Jacques Lecoq. She is the 2007 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literary Translation, and her adaptation of Jane Eyre is published by TRW. Member: SDC, LMDA.
