Anya Saffir
Anya Saffir is a theater director, writer and educator based in and hailing from New York City. Directing credits include Much Ado About Nothingat the American Repertory Theater Institute, Brecht’sThe Caucasian Chalk Circleat Theater for a New City (ITBA Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Show; New York Innovative Theater Award for Best Original Score),Hamletwith Orpheus Productions (three New York Innovative Theater Award nominations, including Outstanding Director),American Sojourns: Three Plays by Thornton Wilderat The Moscow Art Theater,Romeo and Julietat The American Theater of Actors, a new translation of Anton Chekhov’sThe Seagullco-developed with translator Moti Margolin, Pierre Corneille’sL’Illusion Comiqueat The Abe Burrows Theater,The True Story of the Three Little Pigsat Classic Stage Company, Chekhov’sThree Sistersfor Muse Theater, numerous Atlantic Theater student productions including12th Night, Pericles: Prince of Tyre, As You Like It, Our Country’s Good, Mad Forest, The Winter’s TaleandUncle Vanya, and new works by Kate Robin, Jerome Hairston, Mike Dowling and Tom Donaghy for Atlantic’s New Works Series and 10×25 Play Festival. With frequent collaborator-composer Cormac Bluestone Anya co-wrote and directed an operetta of Marjorie Williams Bianco’s classic story,The Velveteen Rabbit, which premiered at Atlantic Theater Company and was nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award Nomination for Best Children’s Play. Anya was co-director and story editor of two seasons of the fiction podcastIt Makes a Sound, and a recurring contributor on Shakespeare topics for NPR’sThe Takeaway. She has taught and directed B.F.A. and M.F.A. actors at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, Brooklyn College, Penn State, and The Center for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, with a special focus on Shakespeare and the plays of Anton Chekhov. She has taught master classes in Practical Aesthetics in Sydney, Australia, and ongoingly at La Teatrería in La Roma, Mexico City.