Below are the recipients of the SDCF Professional Development Program 2024-2025 Season: Cycle 3 – Round 1 Recipients
Mayah Lourdes Burke – Fellowship with Director May Adrales on DAKAR 2000 at Manhattan Theatre Club
Photo by Mayah Lourdes Burke
Mayah Lourdes Burke (she/her) is a Queer Caribbean-American director, writer, and producer born and raised in NYC. With a commitment to championing artivism, her work centers on fostering community, exploring identity, and driving social change through the power of storytelling. Selected directing credits include Good Grief: A Best Friend Play by Ngozi Anyanwu, We Are Proud to Present.… by Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy. Mayah’s fellowships include serving as a Directing Observer under Anne Kauffman for The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window by Lorraine Hansberry, and under Roger Ellis for Get Out Alive at NAMT’s 34th Annual Festival of New Musicals. She is also a proud TPOC ’24 Fellow. Her original work has been produced by Brooklyn Music School, Staten Island Playhouse, El Barrio’s Artspace, and Teatro LATEA. Awards include the Howard Gilman Performance Art Residency Cohort Grant and the Staten Island Youth Award for Contribution to Arts and Culture. Mayah is a member of SDC, the Dramatists Guild, The Makers Ensemble, MTEAF, and TPOC.
Always grateful, thank you God for every blessing! @mayahlourdes www.mayahlourdesburke.com
Jessica Chen – Fellowship with Director Ralph B. Peña on SUMO co-produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company and La Jolla Playhouse
Photo by David Burton
Jessica Chen is a Chinese American dancer, choreographer and Artistic Director of J CHEN PROJECT, a non-profit contemporary dance company in NYC. Her work celebrates diverse narratives through dynamic contemporary movement. Her credits include choreographing Cabaret at CenterREP (Bay Area’s Top 3 Best Dance Productions 2024/Broadway World), Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella at GEVA and Syracuse Stage, Spring Awakening at Montclair State University, and Beautiful: A Carole King Musical at Weathervane, and performance works at New York Fashion Week, Lincoln Center, MACY’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the World Expo/Shanghai. She was a 2023 Bessie Award Nominee for Best Choreography and a Broadway World Regional Productions Best Choreography Nominee in 2024. She is a 2021 GALLIM Moving Women recipient. Her acclaimed show AAPI HEROES will perform at the Museum of Chinese in America for LNY25. She is thrilled to be the 2025 SDCF Director Fellow working on SUMO at The Public Theater. www.jchenproject.com
Bibiana Torres – Observership with Director Susan Stroman on SMASH on Broadway
Photo by Michael Tang
Bibiana Torres (she/her) is a Puerto Rican director and arts administrator interested in new work, magical realism, and Latine stories. She recently made her Off-Broadway debut with LA PASION SEGUN ANTIGONA PEREZ through the Repertorio Español Van Lier Directing Fellowship. She has directed at 54 Below, the Keen Company, The Green Room 42, Emerging Artists’ Theatre Spark Festival, the Yale Repertory Theatre and the Yale University Theatre. She is an alum of the New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Administrative Fellowship (Executive Fellow, 22/23 Season); The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals and The 24 Hour Plays: Broadway; the “Reasons to Go Places” directing seminar with Bartlett Sher at Theatre for a New Audience; Theatre Producers of Color, Producing 101 (Cohort 3); and the Yale Dramatic Association (President 2021, Mainstage Producer Spring 2020). bibianatorres.com