Carol Rocamora

Carol Rocamora founded the Philadelphia Festival Theater for New Plays in 1981 - the city’s first independent non-profit devoted solely to developing the work of contemporary American playwrights. Carol continued to lead the organization as its Artistic Director through 1994. And during this period, she produced, directed and fostered over 100 new plays by everyone from Willy Reale to Romulus Linney, Lanford Wilson, and Lee Blessing . . . and also Philly writers like Albert Innaurato and Bruce Graham. After leaving PFT, Carol was a faculty member at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Julliard School.

She is the author of two theatre biographies: “Anton Chekhov: A Life in Four Acts,” and “Acts of Courage: Vaclav Havel’s Life in the Theatre.” “Rubles”, her new two-volume collection of twenty new stage adaptations of Chekhov’s short stories, was published in 2020. “I Take Your Hand in Mine,” based on the love letters of Chekhov and Olga Knipper, has been translated and performed around the world.

Carol has for many years done theater criticism for such publications as The Nation, The New York Times, American Theatre magazine and The London Guardian. She currently divides her time between New York and Philadelphia, and is a voting member of the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards.