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Nan Barnett

Nan Barnett is the Executive Director of National New Play Network, the country's alliance of more than 130 theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays and an advocate for theater-makers and the theater they make. She helped create NNPN’s revolutionary Rolling World Premiere and Residency programs and guided the Network through the development and launch of its field-altering database, the New Play Exchange®, now home to more than 30,000 plays by living writers, and its recent planning process that resulted in a much-lauded renovation of its governance structure. Nan was the Coordinating Producer of the nationally acclaimed Women’s Voices Theater Festival, serves on the Artistic Councils of the O’Neill Theater Center and PlayPenn, and was inducted into the National Theatre Conference. Prior to joining NNPN full-time Nan was an award-winning actor and Managing Director of Florida Stage, the nation’s largest regional theater producing exclusively new and developing plays and musicals.

a group standing in a circle with glasses raised
You Say You Want a Revolution…
Essay

You Say You Want a Revolution…

National New Play Network's Continuing Commitment to Radical Change

26 January 2020

Nan Barnett, National New Play Network’s executive director, talks about the organization’s twenty-year evolution; the realization that, as a governing body, they were “really, really white”; and their commitment to turning the organization into a replicable model of a diverse and inclusive ecosystem.

Networks and New Works
Essay

Networks and New Works

NNPN Turns Twenty

16 January 2018

On the twentieth anniversary of its founding, Nan Barnett reflects on the National New Play Network’s growth, and discusses the organization’s impact.

Doers Gonna Do—National New Play Network & the New Play Exchange
Essay

Doers Gonna Do—National New Play Network & the New Play Exchange

15 January 2015

National New Play Network launches the New Play Exchange, a crowd-sourced, open-access database of plays, playwrights, and producers. Nan Barnett shares what she hopes it can achieve.

One of Those People
Essay

One of Those People

26 September 2011

After 24 years, Florida Stage — one of the largest LORT theatres dedicated to new and developing works — filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Nancy Barnett, who served as Managing Director, reflects on how the company fell in the wake of the 2007-2008 economic recession.