Monday, April 24, 2017 – Join Foundation Board member Casey Stangl as she sits down with acclaimed director Giovanna Sardelli and playwright Rajiv Joseph to discuss the work of the director, collaborating on new work, and their upcoming production of Archduke at the Taper.

SDC Foundation’s One-on-One Conversation series illuminates the creative processes, secret mottos, and personal and professional experiences that guide today’s luminary directors and choreographers as they forge artistic careers in a profession that has no handbook. These intimate and dynamic conversations between today’s most successful artists offer audiences rare insights into the challenging and ever-changing world of theatre making.

Giovanna Sardelli is an award-winning director who has worked on numerous plays by Rajiv Joseph (over 10 productions) including the West Coast Premiere of his play Guards at the Taj at the Geffen which won the 2017 Ovation Award for Best Production of a Play and the Second Stage Off-Broadway production of his play Animals Out of Paper (for which she won the SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award for Outstanding Director). Sardelli has also directed world premieres of plays by Matthew Lopez, Theresa Rebeck, Lynn Rosen, Joe Gilford, Jeff Augustine, Lauren Yee, Zayd Dohrn, and Zoe Kazan among others. She has worked Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, Playwrights Realm, The Women’s Project, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Roundabout Theatre Company. She has directed numerous productions for Dorset Theatre Festival, where she is a Resident Director, Barrington Stage Company, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, The Old Globe, Hartford Stage Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Hudson Stage Company, San Francisco Playhouse, Cleveland Play House, and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Sardelli works extensively with new plays and has been part of The Lark Play Development Center since it was first formed. She has also developed plays at the Sundance Theatre Lab, The O’Neill, The Playwright’s Center, New York Stage & Film, Denver Center New Play Summit, the Alley All New Festival, and EST. Giovanna spent several years on the faculty of the Dance Department and the Graduate Acting Program of NYU, the program from which she received her MFA. She is also a graduate of their Director’s Lab. Though based in NYC, Sardelli is the Director of New Works for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Recent and Upcoming: Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley), Constellations by Nick Payne (Geffen PlayHouse), Archduke (CTG, Mark Taper Forum) and Describe The Night (Alley Theatre) by Rajiv Joseph.

Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoopremiered at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2009 before moving to the Taper in 2010 and Broadway in 2011. Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was named a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and was also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. Joseph’s play Guards at the Taj was a 2016 Obie winner for Best New American Play and 2016 Lucille Lortel winner for Best Play. His other plays include The North Pool, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper and The Lake Effect. His plays have been translated and produced worldwide.