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Kristin Horton

Associate Professor of Practice
kdh4@nyu.edu
(212) 992-9831
303 - 411 Laf

B.A., Religion, Emory University, 1994
M.F.A., Directing, University of Iowa, 2003

KRISTIN HORTON is a director and educator who works primarily on new plays and community-engaged practices. She is committed to collaborating with writers and artists whose work disrupts and unsettles notions of race, gender and class. Recent work includes AFTER/LIFE: DETROIT '67 by Lisa Biggs, a community-engaged drama about the 1967 Detroit rebellion focusing on the experience of women and girls; BATHTUB, a multimedia performance installation event of radical intimacy and surrender, conceived and performed by Tanisha Christie; and the world premiere of Chiori Miyagawa's IN THE LINE, a play commissioned in response to the 2016 election. In June 2022 she will direct the world premiere of Chisa Hutchinson's WHITELISTED, a revenge horror comedy about gentrification at the Contemporary American Theater Festival.   Horton recently directed two Arabic to English translation workshops: PRINCE OF LIES by Gisele Njeim with translation by Dima Matta and dramaturgy by Sahar Assaf at the NYUAD Institute and DAMASCUS/ALEPPO by Abdullah Alkafri with translation by Dima Matta as part of "Arab Voices: Three New Dramatic Texts from Beirut to Berlin" in New York, curated by Catherine Coray at NYU Tisch.   For many years she developed new work at the Lark Play Development Center, where she directed as part of its many programs including the U.S./Mexico Exchange, Middle East America, Playwright's Week and Barebones Series, as well as several programs for alumni writers including The Playground which she developed in collaboration with directors May Adrales and Sturgis Warner. At the Lark she's worked with numerous writers including Rajiv Joseph, David Henry Hwang, Sam Hunter, Lisa Kron, Chisa Hutchinson, Katori Hall, Steve Drukman, Lloyd Suh, Caridad Svich, Chiori Miyagawa, Saviana Stanescu, Elaine Romero, Dano Madden, Andrew Rosendorf and Jeanne Sakata.   Her new play collaborations have appeared at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Working Theater, HERE, NYC Summerstage, Lark Play Development Center, William Inge Playwrights' Festival, New Dramatists, The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, Workhaus Collective, id Theater, Commonweal Theatre, NYU's Skirball Center, Riverside Theatre, Iowa New Play Festival, Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and National Black Theatre Festival.   Inspired by her experience assisting acclaimed director Lee Breuer on the Mabou Mines' DOLLHOUSE at the Sundance Theater Lab, Horton has continued to investigate re-imaginings of the classics. At NYU Gallatin she commissioned and directed Jen Silverman's BONES AT THE GATE, an adaptation of Sophocles' ANTIGONE as well as directed a devised adaptation of Shakespeare's long poem, THE RAPE OF LUCRECE. Other adaptations have included Jason Grote's 1001, Kafka's THE TRIAL as well as the world premiere of Victoria Stewart's ACCLIMATE, a contemporary adaptation of Ibsen's LADY FROM THE SEA at Commonweal Theatre.   Also a specialist in heightened text, she has directed several plays by Shakespeare for Riverside Theatre in the Park including HAMLET, MERCHANT OF VENICE, RICHARD III and MEASURE FOR MEASURE as well as UNCONTROLLABLE MYSTERY: THREE PLAYS BY WB YEATS at the University of Iowa. At NYU Gallatin she has taught several advanced acting Shakespeare classes focusing on a play or distinct body of work including Hamlet, the Henriad and the Roman Tragedies. In fall 2019, she co-directed an adaptation of Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 with Ben Steinfeld, Co-Artistic Director of Fiasco Theater.   Horton began her theater career in the mid-90s as a member of the Living Stage Theatre Company, the groundbreaking social change theater of Arena Stage, where she created performances for a diverse audience including incarcerated men and women. While in Washington, DC, she also produced adult education programs for the Kennedy Center's 1999-2000 season and served as Artistic Director of Full Contact, whose company-created piece based on the narratives of Kosovar and Serbian refugees premiered at the Studio Theater.  Her early experiences making theater for social change and producing educational programming continue to inform and inspire her work as reflected in recent collaborations with NoPassport, Dream Act Union, Urban Democracy Lab and Center for Creative Activism.   A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Career Development Program for Directors she has also received fellowships from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Sundance Theater Lab.   She is an Associate Professor of Practice in Theater & Directing at New York University's Gallatin School and serves as the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Arts Program. In 2014 she received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has also served as a guest artist at Fordham College at Lincoln Center and Cornell College. She holds a BA in Religion from Emory University and an MFA in Directing from The University of Iowa where she has been recognized as one of its distinguished alumni.   Member, SDC, a national labor union.  

Performances, Productions, Exhibitions & Releases

2022

Whitelisted

In July 2022 Kristin Horton directed the world premiere of Chisa Hutchinson’s Whitelisted at the Contemporary American Theater Festival. In May 2023, Horton will direct a workshop of Leila Buck's Carry You with dramaturgy by Zeina Salame for Engarde Arts and Noor Theater. 

Teaching and Research Interests

directing; new play development; community-engaged practices; theater and social change; practice-based research; puppetry; participatory performance; religion and theater; Greek tragedy; Shakespeare in performance 

Recent News

AWARDS AND HONORS

 

In 2021, Horton was named a Distinguished Alumni, an Honor bestowed by the University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts recognizing alumni achievements and contributions to the field.

AFTER/LIFE, a living history play which directed by Gallatin faculty member Kristin Horton, was awarded $100,000 from the Knight Foundation.

Horton is the recipient of a 2016-2017 National Endowment for the Arts Project Grant for Breaking Bread, a participatory performance she is developing in collaboration with playwright Chisa Hutchinson and Working Theater. She directed a reading of Hutchinson's The Subject at the New Brooklyn Theater.

CONFERENCES

Along with playwright and NoPassport founder Caridad Svich, Horton co-curated and co-organized the 2016 NoPassport Theatre Alliance Conference: Dreaming the Americas: Who Is It For? Spectatorship and the Body Politic, which was held at Gallatin in March 2016.

PERFORMANCES

In July 2022 Horton directed the world premiere of Chisa Hutchinson’s Whitelisted at the Contemporary American Theater Festival.

In August 2022, Horton co-presented a staged reading of After/Life: Detroit ’67 at the Association of Theater in Higher Education in Detroit. The play was subsequently performed at Drew University in Madison, NJ in February 2023.

Horton recently directed two Arabic to English translation workshops.In 2021, PRINCE OF LIES by Gisele Njeim with translation by Dima Matta and dramaturgy by Sahar Assaf at the NYUAD Institute, and in 2019 she directed DAMASCUS/ALEPPO by Abdullah Alkafri with translation by Dima Matta as part of “Arab Voices: Three New Dramatic Texts from Beirut to Berlin” in New York, curated by Catherine Coray at NYU Tisch.

Horton co-conceived and co-directed Holding Breath with Mauricio Salgado (Tisch Drama, Mary Bitel (Tisch Open Arts), Nisha Sajnani (Steinhardt Drama Therapy), and Joe Salvatore (Steinhardt Theater Education). Holding Breath was a cross-school performance collaboration involving undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and alumni that was hosted virtually for two 24-hour periods in response to the Covid-10 pandemic and converging crises in fall 2020.

In April 2019, Horton directed a workshop of DAMASCUS/ALEPPO by Abdullah AlKafri and translator Dima Matta as part of Arab Voices: Three New Dramatic Texts From Beirut and Berlin. In 2017, Horton directed AFTER/LIFE: DETROIT '67, a community-engaged drama about the '67 Detroit rebellion focusing on the experience of women and girls by Lisa Biggs. AFTER/LIFE was created and staged with Virginia Park residents and actors from the Detroit metro area as part of the local '67 commemorative events in Detroit in July 2017, just a few blocks from where the rebellion began. Horton directed the world premiere of Chiori Miyagawa’s IN THE LINE for the 2017 Women in Theater Festival at ART/NY.