TESSA LaNEVE

is the Literary Manager of Primary Stages and the Director of the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA). She created The PrimeTime Reading Series, shepherding early readings of Michael Hollinger’s Opus, Lee Blessing’s A Body of Water, and Tina Howe’s Chasing Manet, all of which were later produced at Primary Stages. Her dramaturgical work has most expressly been seen in Cusi Cram’s A Lifetime Burning, Tina Howe’s Chasing Manet, Willy Holtzman’s Something You Did, Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate (on and Off-Broadway), Michael Hollinger’s Opus, and A.R. Gurney’s Indian Blood. She has worked on and Off-Broadway and regionally as a freelance dramaturg with such artists as Terrence McNally, Michael Blakemore, Brooke Berman, Maria Mileaf, and Christopher Durang. As the Director of ESPA, she programs the curriculum for over 1,500 student artists in collaboration with nearly 80 faculty members. She holds a BA from Barnard College and studied Dramaturgy and Script Development at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She co-produced the 2011 New York One-Minute Play Festival, the 2009 Town Hall Discussion on Gender Disparity in Theater as well as ESPA's monthly Detention Performance Series. Member: Rising Phoenix Rep, LMDA, League of Professional Theater Women, 24Seven Lab.

The First Draft