Nakissa Etemad, MTC’s new Associate Artistic Director, is an Iranian American dramaturg, producer, and French translator specializing in new plays and musicals for over 25 years. She is Regional VP Metro Bay Area for Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), a Resident Artist of Golden Thread Productions, and a member of the Anti-Racism Task Force of LMDA. Recent credits include Yussef El Guindi’s Hotter Than Egypt (2020 Colorado New Play Summit), Heather Raffo’s Noura (Marin Theatre Company/Golden Thread), Marcus Gardley’s Play on! commission of King Lear (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), and world premiere productions with Gardley, Lauren Yee, Marisela Treviño Orta, Margo Hall, and Torange Yeghiazarian. She is a frequent collaborator on Golden Thread’s ReOrient Festivals of Short Plays and Bay Area Playwrights Festivals, including plays by Betty Shamieh, Naomi Wallace, Niku Sharei, Katori Hall, Garret Groenveld, Dustin Chinn, and Terence Anthony. Early highlights include the East Coast Premiere of Resurrection Blues by Arthur Miller (The Wilma), Every Good Boy Deserves Favor by Tom Stoppard & André Previn (The Wilma/The Philadelphia Orchestra), Culture Clash in Bordertown (San Diego Rep), and Festival Director for the 5th Annual New America Playwrights Fest – featuring new plays by Lynn Nottage, Naomi Iizuka and Polly Pen (San Jose Rep). Former dramaturg and literary manager of The Wilma Theater, San Jose Rep, and San Diego Repertory Theatre, and recipient of the 2015 Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy for The Lark's four-city premieres of Marcus Gardley’s the road weeps, the well runs dry. M.F.A. in Dramaturgy, UC San Diego.