Emily Mann (director)


Emily Betsy Mann is an American director, playwright and screenwriter. She has served as the artistic director and resident playwright of the McCarter Theatre Center since 1990.

Career

As McCarter Theatre Center’s Artistic Director and Resident Playwright since 1990, Emily Mann has overseen more than 160 productions, including more than 40 world premieres – creating a home for theater legends and amplifying the voices of women and people of color. During her tenure, the theater won the prestigious Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theatre and Emily herself was twice nominated for Tony Awards® as a playwright and director. Her other numerous personal awards include: The Peabody Award, the Hull-Warriner Award from the Dramatists Guild, the Helen Merrill award, awards from the NAACP, eight Obie awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2011 Person of the Year Award from the National Theater Conference, as well as the Margo Jones Award, given to a “citizen-of-the-theatre who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of the living theatre everywhere.” Mann also received an honorary Doctorate of Arts from Princeton University. In January 2019, McCarter Theatre announced that Emily Mann will retire from the position following the 2019-2020 season.
Mann’s nearly 50 McCarter directing credits include productions by William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and Tennessee Williams and the recent world premieres of Christopher Durang’s "Turning Off the Morning News"; Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s "Murder on the Orient Express"; Rachel Bonds’ "Five Mile Lake"; Danai Gurira’s "The Convert"; Sarah Treem’s "The How and the Why"; Christopher Durang’s "Miss Witherspoon"; and Edward Albee’s Me, Myself and I. Broadway: "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Anna in the Tropics", "Execution of Justice", "Having Our Say".
Her plays include: "Having Our Say", adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth; "Execution of Justice"; "Still Life"; "Annulla, An Autobiography"; "Greensboro "; "Meshugah"; "Mrs. Packard", and "Hoodwinked ". Her new play "Gloria: A Life" about the legacy of Gloria Steinem is currently running Off- Broadway in New York. Adaptations: "Baby Doll", "Scenes from a Marriage", "Uncle Vanya", "The Cherry Orchard", "A Seagull in the Hamptons", "The House of Bernarda Alba", "Antigone". Currently in development: a new adaptation of "The Pianist".
Mann grew up in Chicago, where her father taught history. She completed her BA in English literature at Harvard University in 1974 and her MFA in Directing from the University of Minnesota in 1976.
Mann is divorced from the actor Gerry Bamman, with whom she shares a son, Nicholas. Her current husband is Gary Mailman, an attorney. Mann and Mailman live in Princeton, New Jersey. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994.

Works

Directing

Some of her McCarter directing credits include: