Katie Naka is a theatre director, producer, actor, and writer currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. Katie recently graduated from the MFA Directing program at Columbia University. In the spring/summer of 2015, she served as the interim Production Manager for Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia and is producing a new show for Piehole in Brooklyn at JACK in June.
Originally from Lincolnwood, IL, Katie moved to New York in 2004 after completing her BFA in Acting (minor in Playwrighting) at Emerson College in Boston, Mass. Her work has been seen in The Midtown International Theatre festival, The New York International Fringe Festival, Galapagos Art Space, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Columbia University, and The Women Center Stage Director’s Weekend at the Living Theater. She is an alumna of the 2011 Chicago Director’s Lab, Springboard NYC, and New York Neo-Futurists Basic Training.
Over the years, Katie has also done a fair share of freelance writing. She was a contributing editor to the 2007 Not For Tourists Guide: Brooklyn. Her work has also appeared in Bandshell Magazine, Reservoir Online Magazine, and OutLet Magazine. Her plays have been performed at the New York International Fringe, FOOT (Festival of Original Theatre in Toronto, CN), The Field’s Emerging Artist Showcase at The Kitchen, and she was a runner up for the Rod Parker Playwriting Fellowship at Emerson College.
Recent directing work includes: Resident Director for Play/Date with Michael Counts, Assistant to circus choreographer Gypsy Snider (Les 7 Doigts De La Main: Traces) Pippin at ART in Cambridge, MA (Directed by Diane Paulus) Tony Award winner for best Revival of a Musical 2013, Assistant to Andrei Şerban on the Hungarian premiere of Tony Kushner’s Angels In America (Parts 1 & 2) at the National Theater in Budapest, 2012, Assistant and Associate director to Michael Counts on Philharmonic 360 (staging the NY Phil at the Park Ave Armory, 2012), Moses In Egypt (City Opera, 2013), Fighting Gravity (2013).
