deby xiadani
deby xiadani

AWARDS!

“Best Physical Comedy” at FRIGID Festival 2020

“Participant’s Choice”at FRIGID Festival 2020

“Critics Choice” at PortFringe 2019

 
 

Cooking with Kathryn

Created by Kate Owens, First developed with and Directed by Deby Xiadani

Cooking with Kathryn is an award-winning dark comedy featuring a down home, liquored-up southern belle with more wine in her veins than Jesus.

Kate Owens originated this character from a single 5-minute bit and we’ve developed her into an hour-long special and digital series.

 
 
“A NO FEAR COMEDY, THIS SHOW IS A MUST SEE”
— PORTFRINGE REVIEW

Premiered at:

PORTFRINGE in Maine
FRIGID Festival in New York City
UCB Spank in Hell’s Kitchen
LADYFEST at The Tank

Kate Owens is a true art-partner. She is someone who will endlessly inspire you. See her website here!

 

Gurdin Directing Award

Honorable Mention

 

The Pillowman

Written by Martin McDonagh, Directed by Deby Xiadani

Collaborating with a phenomenal 5-person cast and an imaginative design team, I received an honorable mention for the prestigious Gurdin Directing Award. This was my first directing project and the one that hooked me.

 
 

Set Design: Cristy Altamirano
Costumes: Randi Young
Lighting: Kellie MacPhee
Stage Management: Victoria Rowe & Margot Yecies
Photos by Rob Strong

Dartmouth College, 2014
Guardin Directing Award, Honorable Mention

 
 

🤠 [Cowboy Face]

Written by Elise Wien, Directed by Deby Xiadani

RidgeRock Tech seems like the perfect place to work: beer on tap, a flexible vacation policy, and at least 16 different employees named Matt. But when the new customer support rep Greb joins the office, they sense something dire is coming. Corinne and Kayuri are slacking off with rigor, Diane is slipping into panic, and Greb’s mentor Julie is nowhere to be found. Something is lurking in the Meditation Room. [cowboy face] is a piece that revels in the absurdity of the tech world, and seeks to bring the delight, delirium, and horror of the Internet to the stage.

 

Co-Produced by: Liza Couser and Robert Leverett
Casting Directing by: Sofie Wasserman-Smith
Stage Manager: Margot Yecies
Photos by Liza Couser

Cast:
Mehr Ansari
Tina Barro
Guillermo Contreras
Maddie Easley
Siobhan Hunter
Robert Leverett
TroyElan Richardson

Dixon Place
New York City
Jan 24, 2020

 
 
 

Craters,
Or The Making of the Making
of the Moon Landing

Premiered at Corkscrew Festival

Written by Elise Wien, Directed & Developed by Deby Xiadani

Synopsis: Meet the film team responsible for staging the Apollo 11 moon landing. Or at least, partially responsible. Craters is an exercise in fact-finding, (re)enactment, and the power of simulation.

 
 

Director’s Note:
I had worked with Elise Wien for over a year on this play as her first director of it in 2017 at Dartmouth College. Now, we were performing it in New York City at The Paradise Theater Factory with a hired cast of professional actors.

Wien captures how performance (even if we don’t know it’s performance) can unify a group, a state, a country, and how artists are vital but seemingly disposable in our society. Craters reveals the frailness of human relationships and the resilience of human survival when this group is stuck perpetually in a film lot for the rest of their lives.

As our film crew angrily watches Neil Armstrong, we first believe this group to be anti-American, anti-moon landing, but as we get to know them we realize they are angry because they had been hired - then fired - by NASA to fake the moon landing!

I am proud of our cast who was steadfast and creative. The paper mâché heads were designed by Julie Solomon and they elevated our staged reading. A tremendous amount of emotion can be translated with simple gesture and by the end, the crowd gave us a standing ovation. This project reminded me the power of staged readings.

Featuring:
SYLVIA - Ruby Hurlock
JEAN - Elyse Steingold
LORRAINE - Angela Bilkic
THEO - Robert Leverett
BOBBY/NED - Cristina Henriquez
NEIL/RICH - John Racioppo
STAGE DIRECTIONS - Alicia Thomas

Props by Julie Solomon
Photos by Charles Gleberman

Corkscrew Festival, 2018
Paradise Theater Factory
New York City, NY

 

Craters,
or the Making of the Making of the Moon Landing

Guest Director for the Frost-Dodd Festival Play Winners

Written by Elise Wien, Directed by Deby Xiadani

Set in 1969 at a classified warehouse in the middle of nowhere America, “Craters, or the Making of the Making of the Moon Landing,” stages one of the largest American conspiracies of all time, with self-aware satire that has you laughing the whole time. 

 

Featuring:
SYLVIA - Kelleen Moriarty
JEAN - Gricelda Ramos
LORRAINE - Rachel Webb
THEO - Evan Wetzel
NEIL/RICH - Wyatt Smith
BOBBY/NED - Cameron Buxton

Photos by Rob Strong

Dartmouth College
Winner of the Frost Festival, 2017

 

“Blue Stockings”

“Blue Stockings” was my second directorial production at Dartmouth College.

In the summer of 2014 on my summer abroad in London I met the author of Blue Stockings, Jessica Swale. With blonde hair and sharp blue eyes, she told my class what life was like as a working playwright, the need to “be in the room,” and her obsession with feminism in the late 19th century. I was captivated by her energy and poured over her plays.  I chose this piece after meeting her because it had new challenges — an enormous ensemble and many scenic transitions (26!) and was thematically important — educational access for women!

 

Written by:
Jessica Swale

Directed by:
Deby Xiadani

Set Design: Julie Solomon
Costumes: Randi Young
Lighting: Dan Kotlowitz
Sound: Jackie Page
Props: Kyla Marmejo-Varga
Stage Management: Naomi Lazar & Sebastian Turner

Dartmouth College

Photos by:
Rob Strong

 
 

By Jacqueline Wright

Written by Jacqueline Wright // Co-Directed by Deby Xiadani & Michaela Escarcega

Jacqueline Wright is an L.A. based author of darkly comedic plays and twisted fairytale-like vignettes. We wove 6 vignettes to take you into the mind of Jacqueline Wright - gruesome, honest, and shockingly sweet.

 
 

Set & Props: Rachel Zimmerman
Costumes: Nicolle Allen
Lighting: Deby Xiadani & Michaela Escarcega
Stage Management: Flynn Osman
Photos by: Mari Uchida

Featuring:
Lillian Isabella
Elyse Steingold
Holli Taylor

Presented at The Tank, NYC

 
 

Third Night
A Passover Play

Written By Elise Wien // Directed by Deby Xiadani

Third Night is not only a play, but an interactive experience of Jewish ritual. Set in 1869, South Carolina, immediately after the Civil War, this humorous, fantastical, yet dark play juxtaposes the freedom of Israelites with the freedom of slaves over the "third night" of Passover dinner. 

 

Photos by Jason Merwin

Cast:
Samantha West
Bukiwe Sihlongonyane
Sophia Kinne
Julia Dressel
Maggie Baird
Casey Hunter
Avery Feingold
Zachary Cooper

Invited Director for Student Thesis
Dartmouth College