Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, a Tony Award-winning national leader in the creation of innovative theater, announces the fourth cohort of its transformative fellowship program. In partnership and with a lead gift from the Miranda Family Fund, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s family philanthropic fund, the ambitious two-year paid program is designed to provide talented candidates from historically excluded communities, especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, with the job experience, resources, and training necessary to build their careers as arts administrators or theater technicians. For more information please visit www.woollymammoth.net.
“I can’t believe this is our fourth cohort of Miranda Family Fellows! I’m so proud that the program continues to iterate and adapt to the needs of the next generation of BIPOC leaders in the theater,” says Maria Manuela Goyanes, Artistic Director, Woolly Mammoth. “Expanding to a two-year fellowship will allow time and space for increased learning and skill-building, and will ideally launch these talented young people into even better positions in the workforce. It’s also thrilling to have a fellow back in the Production Department, especially as we strive to grow our production teams.”
The fellows began their roles in August 2024: Annie Nguyễn (Connectivity), Gisela Estrada (Marketing), Aysha Zackria (New Work and Artistic Producing), and Fe Miranda (Production).
Past fellows at Woolly Mammoth have gone on to institutions like The Public Theater, Sixth & I, and National New Play Network.
“This fellowship has allowed me to explore and experience the artistry of DC and learn more about the skills I have to help facilitate and create art in a thoughtful and intentional way.”- Natalia Corvoisier, Connectivity Fellow, 2023-24
MIRANDA FAMILY FELLOWS
Annie Nguyễn: Connectivity (any pronouns) is a heart-centered theater artist who invokes joy and nurtures depth of process. She rotates between poet-playwright, dramaturg, sound designer, and dancer. Annie was raised in Houston by Vietnamese immigrants’ Southern hospitality, so she brings the cookout wherever she goes. Her collectivist background rooted in Buddhist tradition fundamentally informs her artistry. She is attentive to how we cultivate community in the rehearsal room and beyond, deepening the why and for whom. Her multidisciplinary path blending language and sound at Carnegie Mellon University enabled her to serve productions and host parties. She sound designed Dance Nation and facilitated Passage, produced a standup comedy show “BIPOC Comedy Nite,” curated an Asian Studies reference library (The Joy Luck Club), and threw Asian-Latin coalition parties (“KBBQ x Carne Asada”), among other side quests. Annie believes a play is a poem standing up and is decorated by the Academy of American Poets.
Aysha Zackria: New Work & Artistic Producing (she/her) is a queer Pakistani-American dramatist, writer, and musician who recently graduated with a BFA in Dramaturgy from Carnegie Mellon University. She amplifies opportunities for societal growth through creation. Aysha was one of two Literary Fellows at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center during their 2024 Summer programming. She was the dramaturg for several Carnegie Mellon productions, including You on the Moors Now. She received the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 2 Student Dramaturgy Award and was named a National Dramaturgy Fellow for her work on the production. She has written plays that examine social issues, including Pillow Fortress, Proximity, and Natural Law, which she produced at CMU. Her playwriting accolades include a commission by Horizon Theatre Company, an excerpt reading at City Theatre, and a national One Earth Award from Scholastic Arts and Writing. She has served as Script Editor at Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts. In the last five years at this non-profit, she encouraged high school students to make their voices heard by devising works of musical theater. In 2019, she won the Miami Herald’s Silver Knight Award in English and Literature for her work as a tutor and advocate for improving access to literature in carceral facilities. Aysha is also an accomplished bassist with a background in music theory. She has played bass in fourteen musicals and on an album, Cosmic Caravan by Fox. On campus, she was the Co-Chair of the Library Student Advisory Council, Secretary of the Thrifty Mellon, and Representative for the upperclassmen dramaturgs. She received the Michael Gifford Award and was named one of forty senior Andrew Carnegie Society Scholars for her outstanding engagement and academics.
Gisela Estrada: Marketing (she/her) i
Fe Miranda: Production (they/them) was born and raised in Washington, DC and is of Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian descent. They are a stage manager, arts administrator, and musician with a passion for making art that is accessible to underrepresented groups. They believe the arts are community, and creating spaces that allow for the people within those communities to feel safe, brave, and successful is an important part of any theater experience. As a DC native, Fe is excited to be part of creating works that reflect the diversity of the city they grew up in. Their stage management credits include Reefer Madness and In the Heights (NextStop Theatre Company), and Head Over Heels and Just Like Us (George Mason University). Fe is a graduate of George Mason University, where they received a Bachelor of Arts in Music, with a minor in Arts Management.
ABOUT WOOLLY MAMMOTH
The Tony Award-winning Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company creates badass theater that highlights the stunning, challenging, and tremendous complexity of our world. For over 40 years, Woolly has maintained a high standard of artistic rigor while simultaneously daring to take risks, innovate, and push beyond perceived boundaries. One of the few remaining theaters in the country to maintain a company of artists, Woolly serves an essential research and development role within the American theater. Plays premiered here have gone on to productions at hundreds of theaters all over the world and have had lasting impacts on the field. Currently co-led by Artistic Director Maria Manuela Goyanes and Managing Director Kimberly E. Douglas, Woolly is located in Washington, DC, equidistant from the Capitol and the White House. This unique location influences Woolly’s investment in actively working towards an equitable, participatory, and creative democracy.
Woolly Mammoth stands upon occupied, unceded territory: the ancestral homeland of the Nacotchtank whose descendants belong to the Piscataway peoples. Furthermore, the foundation of this city, and most of the original buildings in Washington, DC, were funded by the sale of enslaved people of African descent and built by their hands.
ABOUT THE MIRANDA FAMILY FUND
For over 40 years, the Miranda Family has championed community activism. They have created and supported institutions that have served both underserved populations in Upper Manhattan and communities throughout New York City, across the country, and in Puerto Rico. Luis A. Miranda, Jr. and Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda are proud parents to Luz Miranda-Crespo, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Miguel Towns. Now as adults, Luz and Lin-Manuel are married to Luis Crespo and Vanessa Nadal, respectively, with children of their own. They continue to foster the family’s commitment to advocacy for education, the arts, and social justice – along with a sustained focus on relief and rebuilding efforts in Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria.
ABOUT MIRANDA FAMILY FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
The Miranda Family Fellowship Program was developed to create a pipeline for emerging artists and arts administrators from underrepresented communities to access education and long-term support that advance their careers within theater and TV/film, and to increase diversity within leadership in the entertainment industry. Each Fellowship collaborates with partner institutions to provide paid fellowships and scholarships as well as wrap-around programming to support artistic development, increase understanding of the business aspects of the entertainment industry, and connect artistry with advocacy. The program partners with organizations that have developed or are willing to adopt non-traditional methods to recruit artists and students who have talent, but may have little to no previous exposure and training. The program has supported over 100 social justice-oriented emerging artists and arts administrators.
