BIO

JAY WOODS (SDC) (she/her) is a director, educator and performer transplanted in Seattle from New York. Jay serves a number of theatres in an administrative capacity: Associate Artistic Director for The 5th Avenue Theatre, a resident artist for Sound Theatre, and a proud board member of Proceanium Theatre in New York. She has worked across the U.S., and internationally for institutions such as Seattle Rep, Seattle Public Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Earthseed, ArtsWest, Village Theatre, ACT Theatre, Seattle University, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and Yale. As a response to the 2020 pandemic and racial uprising, Jay founded the Seattle Theatre Leadership Collective which unites artistic leadership across the region in pursuit of a healthier arts-ecosystem. Some directing credits include Beauty and the Beast (5th Ave Theatre), the world premiere of Reparations by Darren Canady (Sound Theatre), Citizen: An American Lyric (Sound Theatre), the U.S. premiere of B (Washington Ensemble Theatre), and Skeleton Crew (ArtsWest). Miss Jay holds an M.A. in Directing from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland, a B.A. in Theatre from SUNY Brockport, and studied film in Thailand at Mahidol University. Currently in process: the director of SWEENEY TODD at the 5th Avenue Theatre April 2023. Writing the stage and screen adaptations of Natasha Marin's Black Imagination.