FEARLESSLY MADE IN NEW YORK

Vineyard Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre company dedicated to developing and producing new plays and musicals that push the boundaries of what theatre can be and do. We seek to nurture a daring community of theatre makers and audiences, and to lift up voices that resonate far beyond our stage.

WHO WE ARE
We are a community of theatre makers working together to astonish, entertain and challenge audiences. At the Vineyard, artists are encouraged to trust their voice, to dare and to dream. In our theatre, audiences can see the work artists most want to make.

HOW WE WORK
We get to know the work of theatre artists at all stages of their careers. When we dedicate resources to a new work in progress, our process is shaped to the artists and their needs, providing time, space and support to help them realize their vision and to bring it to fruition. We seek to build ongoing relationships with our collaborators, to learn from each other, and grow together. 

WHAT WE DO
The Vineyard opened its doors in 1982 as a multi-art chamber theatre on East 26th Street, with theatre, opera, jazz, and children’s programming. Seven years later, we moved to our current home in Union Square, focusing our mission exclusively on theatre, while retaining the spirit of our early days, infusing theatre with collaborations across art forms. We premiere three new works each season and develop many more. We invite all who want to experience fearlessly made theatre to step into The Vineyard and to be part of our community.

OUR CORE VALUES
Integrity | Creative Risk-Taking | Nurturing a Diverse Community

ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

The Vineyard’s artistic development programs create significant opportunities for early-career artists and have helped launch the careers of such notable artists as Tarell Alvin McCraney, Rajiv Joseph, Antonette Nwandu, Clare Barron, Liesl Tommy, and many more.

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EDUCATION

The Vineyard’s education programs expand access to the arts and empower underrepresented voices as future arts workers and audiences. Our education programs for NYC public high school studies serve over 700 students annually.

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ANTI-RACISM ACTION PLAN

Since our inception Vineyard Theatre has aspired to live our core values. Four years ago, we took stock of the work needed from within our organization to fully live those values.

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Avenue Q (Pictured: The Company) 2003
INDECENT (Pictured: F- Adina Verson, B-Katrina Lenk) 2016
DANA H. (Pictured: Deirdre O'Connell) 2019
Is This a Room (Pictured: TL Thompson, Pete Simpson, Emily Davis) 2019

BROADWAY AND BEYOND

Under the artistic leadership of Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern, Vineyard Theatre has nurtured a community of fearless theatre makers whose work has expanded the form, the field, and the larger culture. Vineyard Theatre has transferred 11 shows to Broadway, seven directly after their acclaimed Vineyard premieres: Lucas Hnath’s Dana H. and Tina Satter’s Is This A Room (both NYT Best Theatre of 2021); Paula Vogel’s Indecent; Nicky Silver’s The Lyons; Kander, Ebb and Thompson’s The Scottsboro Boys; Bell and Bowen’s [title of show]; and Avenue Q by Marx, Lopez and Whitty (Tony Award, Best Musical). In recent years, four additional shows launched at The Vineyard have been revived in their first Broadway productions: Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive; Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar And Grill; Becky Mode’s Fully Committed; and Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Three Tall Women.

From our home in NYC’s Union Square, The Vineyard develops and premieres new plays and musicals which go on to be seen around the country and the world. Recently, Jeremy O. Harris’ play Daddy (2019) received its London premiere at the Almeida; Ngozi Anyanwu’s Good Grief (2018) and David Cale’s Harry Clarke (2017) were recorded by Audible; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria (2014), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, transferred to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre; Paula Vogel’s Tony Award-winning Indecent (2016) aired on PBS’s “Great Performances” and was one of the most-produced plays nationwide in 2019; and Colman Domingo’s Dot (2016) is being adapted into an AMC series. The Vineyard’s first major digital work, Lessons in Survival, was named one of the top theatrical experiences of 2020 by The New York Times and has been viewed by audiences in more than 40 countries.

Our work and artists have been honored with numerous awards including Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards, and the company is proud to be the recipient of special Drama Desk, Obie, and Lucille Lortel Awards for artistic excellence and support of artists.

“The Vineyard has an 18-hour-a-day commitment to the writer’s voice that is extraordinary. This theatre has programmed plays that have made a difference in my life year after year after year. They’ve made a difference in my life by giving me a home.”

— Paula Vogel, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, long-time Vineyard artist collaborator (How I Learned to Drive, Vineyard and Broadway; Indecent, Vineyard and Broadway; The Long Christmas Ride Home.)

OUR STAFF

Sarah Stern
Artistic Director
Douglas Aibel
Artistic Director (on sabbatical 2023-24)
Alma Malabanan-McGrath
General Manager
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Amanda Feldman
Interim Director of Development
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Eric Pargac
Marketing Consultant
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Sophia Cordeiro
Marketing Manager
Miriam Weiner
Literary Manager
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Rebecca Schafer
Production & Operations Manager
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Jason Aguirre
Artistic Producing Associate
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Nazareth Hassan
Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence
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Jessica Seley
Audience Services Manager
Lilly Qualls
Development Coordinator
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Caitlyn DeCaprio
Facilities Associate
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Emily Macel Theys
Grants Manager, Surala Consulting
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Marcade DeShields
Custodian
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Alma Malabanan-McGrath
General Manager

Alma Malabanan-McGrath  (she/her/hers) is a first-generation Jersey-based Filipina American who proudly grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley. She has spent more than twenty-five years administratively and operationally supporting the tri-state performing arts community in a number of arts administrative and arts education roles, from teaching artist to theater operations specialist. Alma has most recently been the first-ever general manager at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, NY wherein she developed the position’s role in the producing team to support their future growth; established rehearsal infrastructure at their new home to support the creative processes in their inaugural season, and beyond; and stewarded ongoing workplace practices and Board training to support their anti-racism journey to being an institution of inclusion. Prior to HVSF, Alma was the general manager at Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ for four years under John Dias and Michael Hurst and for fourteen years, the director of operations at the New 42nd Street, where she oversaw the operations and capital improvements of the company’s 84,000 square foot premier performing arts facility in the heart of Times Square. Over the span of her career, she has been committed to establishing consistent administrative practices to maintain stable and supported operational infrastructure, while actively working to create workplace practices that promote dignity and belonging. At one time, she made a living as a professional pastry chef. She does it all for her Scottish husband Dave and their 16-year-old daughter Ailish.

Amanda Feldman
Interim Director of Development

Amanda Feldman most recently served as Managing Director of Classic Stage Company, during their award-winning 2023-2024 season. Prior to that she served as Managing Director of Page 73, where she oversaw the finances, human resources, and marketing, and played a key role in strategic planning and organizational advancement during a time of extreme growth for the organization. For Page 73, she produced numerous playwrights’ NY debut productions including the world premieres of the Pulitzer Prize finalist STEW and the Tony-Award winning A Strange Loop. She has also produced new works Off-Broadway with The Foundry Theatre, En Garde Arts, The Play Company, Abrons Arts Center, The Playwrights Realm, Amerinda, and CollaborationTown. From 2011 – 2014, she led The NYC World Theatre Day Coalition where she created and curated The Around-the-Globe Chain Play. In 2010, she co-founded Neighborhood Productions to support entrepreneurial theater artists self-produce their own works and, for five years, she was the General Manager of the Lark Play Development Center working with dozens of playwrights coordinating readings, workshops, retreats, and international exchanges. Amanda currently serves on the board of History Matters/Celebrating Women’s Plays of the Past. She is a WP Theatre Producer Lab alumna. BA Tufts University.

Eric Pargac
Marketing Consultant

With over 20 years of arts marketing experience, Eric returns to Vineyard Theatre after having led marketing efforts for the company from 2012-2018. He began his career as a co-founder and co-artistic director of Furious Theatre Company, named one of the “Best Theatre Companies of the Decade” by LA Weekly. There, he served as Marketing Director until he moved to New York in 2010. In New York, he became the Director of Communications and New Media for Vineyard Theatre leading the marketing department with a keen eye on new media trends while producing high-end video and podcast content for the company. During Eric’s original tenure at The Vineyard, two productions transferred to Broadway (The Lyons, Indecent), The Vineyard produced 9 of the top 10 best-selling productions in the company’s history, and his final season set the record for highest ticket revenue in the company’s history. He moved back to Los Angeles in 2018 to serve as the Director of Marketing and Communications at A Noise Within, where he exceeded ticket and subscription sales goals and received a Los Angeles Critics Circle Award nomination for Streaming Design during the pandemic. Eric is the founder and creative director for Gotch Creative, offering video editing and production, graphic design, and marketing services for the arts industry.

Miriam Weiner
Literary Manager

Miriam Weiner is the Literary Manager at the Tony Award–winning off-Broadway company Vineyard Theatre as well as a freelance director and dramaturg. She is the creator and host of “Theater Practice” a podcast about watching theater.  “Under the Weather”, a climate-comedy web series that Miriam co-wrote and directed, won the Best Screenplay Award at the Brooklyn Web Festival and has screened around the world from Germany to Sicily. In addition to making work, Miriam is also on the faculty of the Tepper Semester/Syracuse. She holds an MFA in directing from Brooklyn College and a BA from Brandeis University.

Rebecca Schafer
Production & Operations Manager

REBECCA SCHAFER (she/her/hers) has worked in theatrical management in some form or another since she was 13. Starting in carpentry and TD work, then climbing into stage management and lighting and VIP events, Rebecca jumped from Ohio to Boston to NYC as she steadily climbed the ladder eventually landing happily into production management. She has worked at the Public, Soho Rep, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Clubbed Thumb, Abingdon Theater Company, The Flea, Rattletick, The NYC Fringe Festival, NY Fashion Week, The Huntington, The Lyric, The Tonys, and various other places. At age 23 she was for some reason given $150k to run a season for a NYC indie theatre company and gave them their most financially successful and most diverse season ever both in terms of audience and artists, selling out every night of their new work festival for the first time. Tragically, Rebecca worked on a cruise ship as PSM on a megaship in 2019 and became trapped onboard when COVID hit in March, unable to leave the port in Mexico for a month until the ship was able to return to the US. Rebecca now hates cruise ships. Against her will, Rebecca has a decent resume in indie film and for Apple TV, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video. She is an avid supporter of kindness good humor and accessibility in the arts for all, and always keeps in mind her early work cleaning apartments to make ends meet working on unpaid internships. This inspires her to continuously advocate for fair wages for everyone. If you are looking for help making connections in entertainment tech, please feel free to reach out to Rebecca for shadowing opportunities and introductions to relevant colleagues.

Jason Aguirre
Artistic Producing Associate

JASON AGUIRRE (he/him/él) is a New York-based Mexican-American director, bookwriter, and choreographer, specializing in new musical development and reinvestigating the traditional American book musical. As a director, Jason is a SDCF Fellow – mentored by Susan Stroman, an alumni of the Directors Group at Roundabout Theatre Company, and a graduate of the George and Joy Abbott MFA in Musical Theatre Collaboration at Temple University. As a writer, Jason is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre  Workshop and Librettist Workshop, and a founding member of Theatre Now’s National Musical Writers Group. As an artistic leader, Jason is the Co-Artistic Director of UNTITLED Musical Project which is dedicated to providing space for marginalized musical theatre writers of BIPOC/Global Majority, LGBTQIA+/Queer, and their intersecting identities to develop their work and engage in supporting and critiquing their colleague’s work. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographer Association.

Nazareth Hassan
Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence

Nazareth Hassan is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, writing, music, video, and photography. Recent performance works include Untitled (1-5) at The Shed (text published by 3 Hole Press), VANTABLACK at Theatretreffen Stuckemarkt in Berlin, Slow Mania 009 at Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, and Memory A at Museo Universitario del Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City. Their first collection of poetry and photography Slow Mania will be published in 2025 by Futurepoem. They have released 4 singles, available on all platforms. They were the 2022 resident dramaturg at the Royal Court Theatre in London. They are a 2023-25 Jerome Hill artist fellow and the Tow Playwright in Residence at The Vineyard Theatre. They make work about love, anger, ambivalence, shame, and surveillance.

Lilly Qualls
Development Coordinator

Lilly Qualls (she/they) is a multidisciplinary visual and performing artist based in NYC interested in the intersections of the arts, inclusivity, and wellbeing. She loves spicy food, good movies, scary games, and stupid jokes. She holds a B.A.S in Graphic Design and Visual Communications from Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida, where they attended thanks to the Performing Arts department’s scholarship program, gaining valuable experience both on stage and off. Lilly’s visual work has been published online and showcased in the NYC area, and she is currently soaking up all the experiences The Vineyard and the city’s theater scene has to offer! 

Caitlyn DeCaprio
Facilities Associate

Caitlyn (she/ her) recently rejoined the theatre world at Williamstown and is excited to be a part of The Vineyard team. With professional experience in operations, audience engagement, hospitality, and education, she loves harnessing her unique and versatile background to serve as a “supportive backbone” for her team. She loves baking, reading, and spending time immersed in nature. Proud Marist College graduate.

Emily Macel Theys
Grants Manager, Surala Consulting

Emily Macel Theys (she/her/hers) is non-profit consultant specializing in institutional development and grantwriting. Emily is passionate about helping artists and arts and culture organizations achieve their visions by supporting their fundraising efforts. As a lead grant writer for Surala Consulting, Emily collaborates with a wide variety of clients such as Vineyard Theatre, Dance Films Association, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Dance Exchange, Alison Chase, New Dance Alliance, The Field, Bang on a Can, New Yorkers for Culture and Arts, Kelly Strayhorn Theatre, Staycee Pearl, and more. Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Allegheny College and a Masters of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband Jonathan, and two children, Lincoln and Violet.

Our Board

Annette Stover
Board Chair
Sue Marks
Board President
Mark Lerner
Secretary
John Barrie
Treasurer
Katie Erbe
Executive Committee At-Large
Bobby Freeman
Executive Committee At-Large
Douglas Aibel
(on sabbatical)
John Coles
Brandon Victor Dixon
Ken Greiner
Nancy Heller
Sally Horchow
Judy Kuhn
Cody Lassen
(on sabbatical)
Jaimie Mayer
Joe Morton
Steve Ralbovsky
David Schwartz
Sarah Stern
Rolonda Watts

SUPPORT US

We’re very proud that artists at all stages of their careers call Vineyard Theatre their home.  For forty years, it has been our goal to give daring artists a safe space to create exhilarating, original theatre. The generous support of our community makes our work possible. Please consider playing your part at The Vineyard with a tax-deductible gift to help sustain our mission.

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