Nell Bang-Jensen is a Philadelphia-based theater maker and the newly appointed Artistic Director of Theatre Horizon She has created four full-scale, original works, in addition to directing and producing for many of Philadelphia’s major theater institutions, including Philadelphia Theatre Company, the Wilma, Pig Iron, and the Painted Bride. Nell is a recipient of a 2019 Map Fund Award, a Next Stage Director’s Fellowship from the Drama League (2019), a Thomas J. Watson Fellow (2011-2012), a Frank 5 Fellow for the Aydelotte Foundation (2017), and a participant in the Leadership U: One-on-One program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications group; a national fellowship given to eight individuals who TCG believes are the core and future of theater. In October 2018, American Theatre magazine named her one of six “theatre workers to know” across the nation.
Nell has served as Associate Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company and was on the artistic staff of the Wilma Theater for three years. While at the Wilma, Nell helped to create the Hothouse: a resident acting company with an ensemble-based approach to creating theater. Nell is also passionate about Education and is an Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts in their Directing, Production and Playwright Department. She has worked as a teaching artist for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Hedgerow Theatre, and as one of three national curriculum designers for Microsoft’s Bing in the Classroom Initiative. She has facilitated classes at Temple University and Swarthmore College, among others.
Nell is also a Co-Founder of HATCH, an arts residency in Harrisville, New Hampshire that provides female-identifying and non-binary artists with time and space away from their daily lives to create new theater.
Her recent directing credits include WILD PARTY (UArts), THE CAREGIVERS (Pig Iron), PRACTICE WEDDING (Painted Bride) and THE REAL WHISPER (Polyphone Festival). Nell’s interests in radical models for community engagement, social practice, devising, and new play development, guide much of her work.
