Photo by: Julia Rosa Sosa Chaparro

The 2026 Barbara Whitman Award will be presented to Julia Rosa Sosa Chaparro along with an unrestricted award of $10,000 from SDCF.

Julia Rosa Sosa Chaparro is a director, playwright and songwriter from Ciudad Juárez, focused on projects that uplift immigrant and BIPOC communities. Her recent directing credits include A Christmas in Ochape at New Native Theatre, Life is a Dream at The University of Oklahoma, and The Heart Sellers at Dobama Theatre.

As a playwright, her work El Toro y la Niña was adapted into a radio play for ReUnion rEvolución: A Latinx New Works Festival. Her first musical, El Romántico, had its inaugural workshop in 2024, exploring the disconnection between fathers and daughters during their teenage years.

Her aesthetic is colorful, playful, musical, and adaptable—simple when needed, maximalist always, driven by curiosity and a commitment to enriching the experiences of actors, designers, and audiences alike. She is currently exploring visual storytelling through her stop-motion animated mini-series Las Chulas.

Julia has received support from the Creative Impact Fund Assembly for the Arts, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Center for Performance and Civic Practice Learning Lab, and Red Bull Arts. She has participated in programs including the Directing Observership Fellowship at Opera Columbus, Directors Lab Chicago, Los Procesos Creativos by Marta Pazos at Nave 10 Matadero, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival FAIR program. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso.

JULIAROSASOSA.COM

Learn more about the finalists below.

Photo by: Joan Marcus

Susanna Jaramillo (she/they) is a Queens-based director and stage manager. Artistically, Susanna believes in radical inclusion and aims to create work that lives in sensorial extremes, subverts our expectations of identity, and uplifts voices that are left out of the theatrical canon. Recent credits include: You Can Sit With Us (WP Pipeline Festival), Broken Images (Paradise Factory Theatre), hey hey (Episodic Theatre Project) The Memory Brigade (The Motor Company), the doctor will see you shortly (Keen Company), azn sad grl (Mercury Store) Myth of the Mountain (Open Jar), Jesus 2.0 (Workshop Theatre), Fucking A (PPAS), Best Life (JACK). Assisting/Associate credits include: Antigone (This Play I read in Right School) (The Public), Yellow Face (Broadway, Roundabout) The Ants (Geffen Playhouse), Wolf Play (MCC) Dom Juan (Bard SummerScape) Wine in the Wilderness (Roundabout Theatre Co.), African Caribbean MixFest (Atlantic Theatre Company). Susanna is an alum of the Roundabout Director’s Group and the inaugural Drama League Irene Gandy Directing Assistantship Program and a current member of the 2024 – 2026 WP Theater Lab.

susannajaramillo.com

Photo by: Catalin Media

Irvin Mason Jr. is an island boy turned New York–based director, raised in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. His work combines expressive movement, live music, emerging technology, and Afro-Caribbean traditions to revitalize live storytelling. Irvin aims to create work that leaves residue — unapologetic theater that dismantles traditional foundations and opens space for new voices to tell their stories. He’s a Drama League Directors Project Alum and apart of Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 7. He recently assisted in developing new plays and musicals at the Playwrights’ Center, NYSAF, and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. His recent directing credits include: Bobbie Clearly (Atlantic Acting School) Marcus, or The Secret of Sweet (Brooklyn College) None: A Practical Breviary (NYSAF); The Postman’s Daughter (Forager Theater), Short New Play Festival (Red Bull Theater) Ain’t Misbehavin, Pipeline (Gallery Players); Stuck (Chain Theatre). Associate/Assistant Directing: The Wild Party (City Center); Mexodus (Audible Theater, Daryl Roth Theater, National Tour); Co-Founders (ACT); Amerikin (Primary Stages); Two Trains Running (The Acting Company); Gin Game (Park Square Theater); Gospel According to Heather (AMAS); Pup! A Chew Story (NAMT). Directing Observer: The Wiz (Broadway); Little Shop of Horrors, Rent (MUNY, SDCF).

@iirvinmason | irvinmasonjr.com

Photo by: Ken Yotsukura

Sarah Shin is a Korean American theatre artist whose work lives at the intersection of cultural work, creative leadership, and community engagement. As a director, she is interested in how theatre can uncover hidden histories, often telling the stories of overlooked or marginalized people who use imagination and comedy as a
tool for survival.

Select Directing Credits: The Chinese Lady (Stages Houston), The Supreme Leader (Mile Square Theater), Silent Sky (Central Square Theater), The Chinese Lady (Central Square Theater, Boston Globe Critics’ Pick, (with 5 Elliot Norton Award Nominations and 1 Win), The Sitayana (or “How to Make An Exit”) (The Tank, NY Premiere). She is currently developing quAntum medeA, a Korean American deconstruction of the Greek tragedy by esteemed playwright Sung Rno

She worked as Associate/Assistant Director to Pam MacKinnon, Trip Cullman, Barry Edelstein, Keenan Tyler Oliphant, Telly Leung, and Diana Oh. She was also the SDC Observer for Broadway’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tommy Kail.

Select performing credits: Endlings (Hedgerow Theatre), OriGen Story (Clubbed Thumb, Pan Asian Rep, LaMama), The Tempest (Catskill Mountain Shakespeare)

Her work has been supported by the Public Theater/Brooklyn College Residency, NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music, and Theatre, The Boston Foundation, NEFA Public Art for Spatial Justice Grant, and Asian American Arts Alliance WWYD Grant. She is the Co-Founding Producing Director of Queer Asian Babes and Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston, a Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 4 Member, Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab 2024-2025 Resident Director, A4 Virtual Resident Artist, and New York Stage and Film 2025 Pfaelzer Award Recipient. She received her BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University.

Photo by: Owen Scarlett

Diana Wyenn is a Los Angeles-born and -based director, choreographer, dramaturg, and creative producer. Working across theater, opera, music, dance, and film, her interdisciplinary practice explores themes of trauma and healing, equity and disability justice, environmental responsibility, and civic engagement.

Her directing and choreographic work has been presented by leading organizations in the U.S. and Europe, including Center Theatre Group, LA Phil, LA Opera, Malmö Opera, MOCA, Roundabout Theatre Company, Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as Boston Court Pasadena, IAMA Theatre Company, Beth Morrison Projects, National Sawdust, LACMA, BroadStage, REDCAT, UCLA, CalTech, ASU Gammage, and Yale’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Known for developing new work and transforming personal experience into incisive, socially conscious art, Wyenn’s professional highlights include the World Health Organization presenting her award-winning autobiographical solo performance Blood/Sugar; directing the premieres of Theodosia Roussos’ Polymnia and Daniel Kessner and Lionelle Hamanaka’s The Camp; devising and touring Kristina Wong for Public Office; choreographing the U.S. premiere of Andrew Norman’s A Trip to the Moon at Walt Disney Concert Hall; and creative directing Imagine US featuring more than 150 students from Interlochen Arts Academy performing with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Her work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Arts and Disability Center, Center for Cultural Innovation, and the California Arts Council. Wyenn holds a BFA with honors from New York University and lives in Los Angeles, where she co-founded Plain Wood Productions and serves as Co-Artistic Director of Ammunition Theatre Company.

dianawyenn.com

AWARD ELIGIBILITY

An ideal nominee could be considered on the cusp of breaking out and this award would help lift them and their work to the national level.

A Nominee must have directed at least three productions outside an academic environment but is not yet working on LORT D stages or above or beyond the 99-seat theatre spaces in New York City

The Nominee should not have an ongoing affiliation/position with a major theatrical organization (e.g. resident artist, associate, director-in-residence) and cannot be in college or graduate school or have plans to attend either in the next year.

Both SDC Members and non-members are eligible to nominate and be nominators. SDC Member are strongly encouraged to nominate individuals for the award.

Nominees must reside full-time in the United States and must be nominated by a theatre industry professional.

Finalists from previous years are welcome to apply again.  Please know you can only be a finalist once. If you apply again, you will only be eligible to receive the award.

There is no age requirement.

Applications for 2027 open in December.

Past Recipients

About Barbara Whitman

Barbara Whitman is a theatrical producer who made her Broadway debut producing A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan. Other Broadway credits include A Strange Loop (Tony Award and Drama Desk Award, Best Musical and Pulitzer Prize),  Diana – The Musical, Burn This starring Adam Driver and Keri Russell, Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk Award, Best Play Revival), 1984, The Glass Menagerie starring Sally Fields, War Paint starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, The Humans (Tony Award, Best Play), Oh, Hello starring Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, Fully Committed starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Fun Home (Tony Award, Best Musical), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Tony and Drama Desk Award, Best Musical Revival), Of Mice and Men starring James Franco, If/Then starring Idina Menzel, Hands on a Hardbody, Red (Tony and Drama Desk Awards, Best Play), Next to Normal (Pulitzer Prize), Hamlet starring Jude Law, 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda, Mary Stuart, Legally Blonde – The Musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  National tours include Fun Home, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, If/Then, Murder for Two, Next to Normal, Legally Blonde – The Musical, …Spelling Bee, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Frost/Nixon.  A native New Yorker, Barbara attended NYU’s Gallatin School and received an MFA in Theatre Management and Producing from Columbia University. She’s a member of the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee of the Broadway League, and also serves as a Co-Chair of the Equity Diversity and Inclusion Committee.  In addition, she’s on the Board of Tectonic Theater Project, and Columbia University School of the Arts Dean’s Council. Upcoming productions include Good Night, Oscar starring Sean Hayes.