DIRECTING
INCITE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY SANTA FE (ISC SANTA FE)
(formerly International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe)
Artistic Director 2018-Present
The mission Incite Shakespeare Company Santa Fe is to engage and build community through imaginative, entertaining, and insightful performances, using Shakespeare as a mirror to reflect our time. Ariana has directed their productions of Richard III (2023), Pericles (2022), The Winter’s Tale (2022), Julius Caesar (2021), and Henry IV, Part I (2019). She has also worked with their partner organization, the Upstart Crows of Santa Fe, creating and directing two original compilation shows for their young actors.
2023 Trailer for Richard III
2022 Trailer for Pericles
2022 Trailer for The Winter’s Tale
2021 Trailer for Julius Caesar
Production Stills
UPSTART CROWS OF SANTA FE
Guest Director & Visiting Artist 2016-2019
The Upstart Crows of Santa Fe is a program based on the practices and philosophies of the Young Shakespeare Players of Madison, WI (please see below). Ariana has led group and special rehearsals on textual analysis, staging, characterization, and taught movement work including ensemble building, stage combat, Elizabethan dance, and Viewpoints. She also worked as a guest director on two self-devised productions for the Upstart Crows: And Now for Something Completely Different: Scenes from Shakespeare and Monty Python, & We Few, We Happy Few: Scenes from Shakespeare’s History Plays.
YOUNG SHAKESPEARE PLAYERS
Lead Director 2011-2012
The Young Shakespeare Players (YSP) is a program that produces uncut Shakespeare plays with actors aged 6-18 with an emphasis on textual ownership. Ariana started directing with YSP when she was 15. Early directing projects with the YSP include: Othello, Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, King Lear, As You Like It, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, G. B. Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, G. B. Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, Sid Caesar Comedy Workshop, David Edgar’s 9-hour adaptation of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, and an original 10-hour adaptation of Our Mutual Friend.
DUCDAME ENSEMBLE
Founding Member & Director 2015-2016
Founded by graduates of the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, Ducdame Ensemble is committed to impassioned, relevant, and spirited storytelling where the play is always the thing. In August of 2016, Ariana worked as a producer, director and actor for the repertory season of International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe (ISC) in collaboration with Ducdame Ensemble. She directed an immersive Twelfth Night in Meow Wolf's award-winning House of Eternal Return, the first play to be performed in that unique space. In February of 2016, she adapted and directed an original production for the first collaboration between Ducdame Ensemble and the ISC, Dames of Thrones: The Women of Shakespeare's Histories, focusing on the female perspective in Shakespeare's history plays. She directed the inaugural production of Ducdame Ensemble, a revival production of Lope de Vega’s, Fuente Ovejuna, which garnered a "Best Bet" of the NYC Fringe and an Overall Excellence Award for Best Directing.
Promotional Video for Dames of Thrones: The Women of Shakespeare’s Histories.