MIRANDA CORNELL (she/her/hers) is a mixed-race, Japanese-American New York-based theater director, educator, and sometimes writer born and bred in Brooklyn, NY. She tells stories that are unabashedly sincere, achingly human, and irrevocably alive.
Directing credits include Soft Jade (軟玉) at the Yale Summer Cabaret, all three episodes of Writer’s Retreat with Primetime Theater, Kim Loo Gets A Redo at the New Ohio’s Ice Factory festival, Spring Awakening with The Mimes & Mummers at Fordham University, “Head and Heart,” a concert of original songs written and performed by artists 25 and under (NYMF @ Signature Theatre), and the North American premiere of Breach Theatre’s It’s True, It’s True, It’s True (Idlewild Theatre Ensemble).
She has developed work through readings and workshops with the Roundabout Underground, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, Playwrights Realm, Leviathan Lab, Mercury Store, Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, ZAPI Artists, The 24 Hour Plays, the Asian American Arts Alliance, Access Theater, Hunter MFA Playwrights Festival, FringeNYC, Moxie Arts NY, and Semicolon Theatre Company.
She has served as assistant/associate director to Chay Yew, Danya Taymor, Robert Icke, Rachel Chavkin, and Michael Greif, and more at Dear Evan Hansen (Broadway and North American tour), NYTW, Park Avenue Armory, La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre Center, New York Stage & Film, and The TEAM.
Miranda was the 2020 Van Lier Fellow in Theater at the Asian American Arts Alliance, the inaugural Directing Apprentice at Dear Evan Hansen , part of the Moxie Arts Incubator, and is a proud member of the Roundabout Directors Group (Cohort 2), and was just named a 2050 Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop for the 2022/2023 season.
Outside of directing, she was seen in Pocket Universe’s all-female Julius Caesar as Casca, which was featured for its fresh take in the New York Times in July 2017. She was also the founding Artistic Director of Semicolon Theatre Company, a company dedicated to producing the work of young theater artists and administrators professionally in New York. Alongside creative partner Zoe Kamil, she was named a ‘Woman to Watch’ by The Interval in 2016 at the age of 19.
She holds BAs in Drama and Education at Vassar College, where she was awarded the Molly Thacher Kazan Prize for her direction of Revolt. She said. Revolt again. and received top honors on her thesis in Educational Studies about socially engaged and culturally reflexive curriculum in adolescent theater classrooms.
CURRENTLY:
A 2050 Artistic Fellow in Directing at New York Theatre Workshop
Remounting Chay Yew’s direction of Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord at Portland Center Stage as Associate Director (runs Nov. 5 through Dec. 18, 2022)
Associate Director to Danya Taymor for the development and world premiere of The Outsiders at La Jolla Playhouse (runs Feb. 19 through April 2, 2023)
ONGOING:
Collaborating with Jesse Jae Hoon on his play Somebody is Looking Back at Me, currently through Jae Hoon’s writing fellowship at Playwrights Realm
Working on confirm me with heesun hwang, in partnership with Leviathan Lab for a workshop in 2022
Developing a project about standardized patients with playwright Charles Gershman and dramaturg Salma S. Zohdi, with assistance from Mercury Store