Ronee Penoi (Laguna Pueblo/Cherokee) is Director of Artistic Programming at ArtsEmerson, Boston’s leading presenter of contemporary world theater. Previously, she was a Producer with Octopus Theatricals, where she advanced the work of Cherokee artist DeLanna Studi (And So We Walked), Phantom Limb Company (Falling Out), Ripe Time (Sleep), Homer’s Coat (An Iliad by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson), Theatre for One, and more. She is a two-time ISPA (International Society for Performing Arts) Global Fellow, and has been an APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) Leadership Fellow and TCG (Theatre Communications Group) Rising Leader of Color. Ronee is on the board of the Producer Hub, and is also a Founding Member of The Industry Standard Group (TISG), a multimedia commercial investment and producing organization with an intentional focus on increasing the presence of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) investors and producers in the commercial producing field. She is also co-founder (and current core collaborator) of the Groundwater Arts Collective dedicated to climate justice in the arts (recipient of a SPACE at Ryder Farm Residency Grant). She is a proud NEFA (New England Foundation for the Arts) National Theater Project Advisor, and part of the working consortium of First Nations Performing Arts. Ronee is a two-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Individual Artist Fellowship, recipient of a Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program Grant, as well as commissions from Baltimore Center Stage and Pittsburgh Public Theater, for her musical composing work with collaborator Annalisa Dias. Previously, Ronee was NNPN Producer-in-Residence at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Senior Producing Fellow and Directing Fellow at Arena Stage, and toured nationally with Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy. She spent three years with the Consensus Building Institute, a non-profit specializing in facilitation and mediation services. Her current anti-racism practice builds upon a decolonization framework and embraces systems change as a key component of that work. She graduated with honors from Princeton University with a degree in Music with certificates in Vocal Performance and Theatre & Dance. She has been invited to guest lecture on producing at Princeton University, CalArts, Howard University, and for American University’s graduate Arts Administration program.
Ronee Penoi
Decolonizing Arts Leadership Through Shared Black and Indigenous Leadership
Essay
Decolonizing Arts Leadership Through Shared Black and Indigenous Leadership
12 September 2023
Restorying Our Past and Present, Imagining Our Future
Essay
Restorying Our Past and Present, Imagining Our Future
9 February 2023
Committing to a Community
Essay
Committing to a Community
Ronee Penoi and Shanta Thake in Conversation
4 January 2022
Catalyzing Climate Justice by Divesting from Fossil Fuels
Essay
Catalyzing Climate Justice by Divesting from Fossil Fuels
19 February 2021
To Witness
Essay
To Witness
A Proposal to Build Radical Trust across Difference in the Arts
6 November 2019
Two Residents, One Play
Essay
Two Residents, One Play
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb on writing and Robert O'Hara on directing The Totalitarians at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
27 June 2015
Reflecting on Twenty-Seven Years of Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center
Essay
Reflecting on Twenty-Seven Years of Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center
19 March 2015
Making the Residency Work for You
Essay
Making the Residency Work for You
Robert O’Hara, Playwright-in-Residence at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
12 October 2014
Black and Indigenous Futures
Series
Black and Indigenous Futures
From slavery to stolen land, African Americans and Indigenous peoples have been harmed by settler colonialism from pre-revolutionary times to today. Their histories are unique and intertwined, with examples of distrust and violence as much as solidarity and alignment.