Director, Where We Belong
Mei Ann Teo is a queer immigrant from Singapore who is an artistic leader, theatre and film maker, and educator. A recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Josephine Abady Award and the Inaugural Lily Fan Director Lilly Award, they have served as the Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory, the Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and currently are an Artistic Leader at Ping Chong and Company.
Teo makes theatre & film at the intersection of artistic/civic/contemplative practice. As a director/devisor/dramaturg, they create across genres, including music theatre, intermedial participatory work, reimagining classics, and documentary theatre. Directing work includes: World premieres: Jillian Walker’s SKiNFoLK: An American Show at the Bushwick Starr (NYTimes Critics Pick, NYMag’s matrix “Highbrow and Brilliant”) and Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong at Shakespeare’s Globe, Woolly Mammoth (“directed with cinematic grandeur” —Washington Post), and a national tour including The Public, Seattle Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Company, the Goodman, Portland Center Stage, and now Oregon Shakespeare Festival. North American premiere of Amy Berryman’s Walden at Theatreworks Hartford that swept the Connecticut Circle Critics Awards including Best Production and Director (“brilliant direction” —Hartford Courant, NYTimes Critics Pick).
Teo’s work has toured the U.S. and internationally including the world premiere of Dim Sum Warriors by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun at Stan Lai’s Theatre Above in Shanghai, which went on a national twenty-five city tour in China. Teo developed and directed Bryonn Bain’s Lyrics from Lockdown, which has toured Belgium’s Festival de Liege, Singapore’s M1 Festival, and had a run at the National Black Theatre (“Truly polished, meaningful and entertaining” —New York Times), and many prisons and educational institutions across the country. They developed and directed Ruth Tang’s Building a Character with Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai at Wild Rice’s Singapore Theatre Festival (Hit List of the Business Times, “Dynamic staging”), and created Labyrinth for the Beijing International Festival (Top 8 in Beijing News).
As an educator, they served as the Chair of Drama/Resident Artist at Pacific Union College, the Asst. Professor of Directing and Dramaturgy at Hampshire College, and the John Wells Visiting Professor of Directing at Carnegie Mellon, and has lectured at many universities including Harvard TDM. They hold an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University and are a proud member of SDC. meiannteo.com