The School of Theatre and Dance is thrilled to welcome theatre artist JaMeeka Holloway as the 2021-2022 Roe Green Visiting Director. Holloway will join the School as a visiting director-in-residence in the Spring of 2022 to direct a reimagined production of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
About the Roe Green Visiting Director Series
The Roe Green Visiting Director Series was established in 2003 by Kent State alumna and Cleveland-based philanthropist Roe Green. An initial $25,000 donation was repeated annually until 2018 when Ms. Green endowed the Series with a $2.2 million gift allowing it to continue in perpetuity. Through the program, the School of Theatre and Dance invites a guest professional director each year to work in residency with students and direct one of the School's Main Stage productions. The School of Theatre and Dance is fortunate to be able to offer this opportunity to its students. Now in its 18th year, the Roe Green Visiting Director Series continues to bring professional directors to 5XÉçÇø.
About JaMeeka Holloway
JaMeeka Holloway (she/her/hers) is a freelance director and independent producer passionate about the advancement of more Equity, Access, and Inclusivity in American Theatre. She is the Founding Artistic Director of Black Ops Theatre Company, lead curator for the Bull City Black Theatre Festival in Durham, NC, and a founding company member of Bulldog Ensemble Theatre. A 2018 Indy Arts Award winner, JaMeeka is a 2019-20 grant recipient from both the Manbites Dog Theater Fund and from the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists program. In February 2019, Holloway was honored by the African American Heritage Commission and Governor Roy Cooper for her contributions to the arts and culture landscape of North Carolina. She also served as a 2019 theatre panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and for the North Carolina Arts Council. An alumnus of The Lark Play Development Center and Cape May Stage Apprenticeship program, JaMeeka has been an Assistant Director with The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Merry Wives of Windsor directed by Dawn Monique Williams) and Playmakers Repertory (Detroit '67 directed Lisa Rothe/ Leaving Eden directed Vivienne Benesch), and more recently, an Associate Director with Duke Performances at Duke University. Currently, she is producing a new virtual reading series, Blk Girls Luv the Bard, which reimagines, reframes, and examines plays by William Shakespeare through the lens of Black and IPOC women/femme-identifying artists. Her directing work has appeared at Northern Stage in Vermont (CITRUS by Celeste Jennings, a world premiere), Shakespeare in Detroit (Twelfth Night), Classic Stage in NYC (Twelfth Night), Durham Performing Arts Center, and Manbites Dog Theatre in Durham (The Typographer's Dream by Adam Bock), The Department of Theatre at Dartmouth College (CITRUS by Celeste Jennings, a senior thesis project), Duke University’s Department of Theatre Studies (Fuddy Meers/ CITIZEN: An American Lyric), the National Black Theatre Festival (Don't forget Yeye by Nsangu Njikam) and most recently The National Women's Theatre Fest (OTHELLO by WS in a modern-verse translation by Mfoniso Udofia). JaMeeka is a published contributor in the 2018 Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. She is Associate Director and co-writer on the piece DREAMING which will premiere in NYC Fall '21 at La Mama Experimental Theatre.