NEW YORK CITY: WP Theater has named Ayana Parker Morrison their new BOLD associate artistic director. She succeeds Rebecca Martinez, who recently joined One Nation/One Project. Martinez will return to direct Bite Me this fall.

“We are thrilled to welcome Ayana to WP’s artistic leadership team. I can’t wait to dive into artistic collaboration together,” said producing artistic director Lisa McNulty in a statement. “Ayana is a brilliant practitioner and producer, a thoughtful leader, and a joyful maker in a time when we could all use more joy. I look forward to all the ways that WP will grow and change under Ayana’s eye.”

Parker Morrison is an alumna of the WP Producers Lab and was the inaugural producing fellow with New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Artistic Fellowship. She recently served as the manager of artistic production at MCC Theater and is a creative producer with Checkmark Productions. Her other producing credits include work at HERE Arts Center, Colt Coeur and Lafeytte Avenue Presbyterian Church. Parker Morrison is currently developing Phillip Howze’s Self-Portraits with the Bushwick Starr. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

“I’m thrilled to be stepping into this new leadership position within the WP community,” said Parker Morrison in a statement. “It fostered so much of my artistic growth while I was in the Producers Lab at the height of the pandemic, and I look forward to showing my gratitude by supporting the next cohort of artists.”

WP Theater is the nation’s oldest and largest theatre company dedicated to developing, producing, and promoting the work of women and trans and gender nonconforming artists at every stage of their careers. For more than four decades, the theatre has served as leaders at the forefront of a global movement towards gender parity and helped to grow a robust and thriving community of artists. As of 2022, the theatre had a budget of approximately $1.6 million.