ABOUT

A young person with short dark hair, wearing a blue baseball cap with yellow embroidery, a gray button-up shirt over a black top, and earrings, standing in front of green leafy trees.

Tessa Bagby (they/she) is a Bay Area-born, Brooklyn-based director, dramaturg, and nurturer of original live performance. Directing credits include Tariq’s Interlude (HERE, The Gym at Judson),  The Flip Protocol (Classic Stage Company - 24 Hour Plays), Spew’s Little Baby (The Tank), MAiD in America (NYU, Dramatists Guild Foundation), Baba Yaga and the Federal Trade Commission (Queens Short Play Festival), The Angry Brigade (Drew University), God and Abraham Play Ping Pong (Minnesota Fringe Festival), [BLANK] (Drew University). As an associate/assistant director, Tessa has worked with Will Frears, Jolie Tong, Kim Weild, Taylor Reynolds, Isaac Butler, Jack Serio on his Drama-Desk nominated Uncle Vanya, and extensively with Emma Went, most recently on the world-premiere production of Else Went’s Initiative (The Public). They are a 24 Hour Plays: Nationals Alum and a 2024 Performance Artist-in-Residence with The Village Collective. 

Since moving to New York in Fall 2022, Tessa has worn a variety of different hats, supporting work on and off-Broadway with The Public, The Apothetae, Mercury Store, NYU, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Juniper Street Productions, The Tank, NYTW, Beth Morrison Projects, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and, best of all, in basements/roofs/living rooms across the city.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Proscenium-averse in practice, Tessa collaborates with candor, rigor, and care to develop and present new work in unconventional spaces. Their work asks questions about the dissonant relationships between the spiritual and the corporeal, desire, personal responsibility, environment, transformation, embodied queerness and unbalanced power. They love art that is hot, weird, a little punk and a lot sincere.

“I love stories about people who behave inconsistently, who really really want to touch each other but won’t, and who carry ghosts inside them. I love comedies that make you cry, pacing that makes you lean in, hold your breath… then punches you in the heart.

My creative practice is rooted in building relationships with other artists who have the enthusiasm of kids making up a play in the backyard to show to their parents, with the drive to play/work with voracity, rigor, honesty, and joy.”

WISHLIST

  • anything in the Else Went canon 

  • Wolf Play by Hansol Jung

  • Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

  • [BLANK]  by Alice Birch

  • ARE THE BENNET GIRLS OKAY? by Emily Breeze

  • The Antipodes by Annie Baker

  • Proof by David Auburn

  • Cyrano by Edmund Rostand

THINGS THAT ARE EXCITING TO ME

  • the end design sequence of the 2024 Broadway production of Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins