Nela Wagman • Theater & Film Director

Up Next for Nela Wagman:

That Was Delicious, written and directed by Nela Wagman, and featuring Wagman and Jon Krupp, screens at the Golden Door International Film Festival on September 22 2019, and at the Yonkers Film Festival on November 9 2019. The Yonkers screening is at 10 am at the YoFi Digital Media Arts Center, 28 Wells Ave, Yonkers, NY. For tickets and more information please visit That Was Delicious at YoFiFest 2019.

Nela Wagman’s NYC theater directing credits include the OBIE-winning My Left Breast by Susan Miller, Lucinda Coxon's Waiting at the Water's Edge, Neena Beber's Acts of Desire, and David Edelstein's Blaming Mom, for Watermark Theater. Other NYC premieres: Lee Blessing’s Thirty-fourth and Dyer and Erin Cressida Wilson’s Hands at The Town Hall, Christopher Shinn’s Two Worlds at the Lucille Lortel,  Amy Fox’ Summer Cyclone and Casting, Ann Marie Healey’s Bonnie, and Lloyd Suh’s Masha No Home for Ensemble Studio Theater.

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My Left Breast by Susan Miller premiered at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, and continued on to its OBIE winning New York run, produced by Watermark Theater. Since then, the production has been presented in over a dozen cities across the country.

Wagman wrote and directed the short film MAGNETISM, starring Isabel Keating and Chris Ceraso, which screened at the Cleveland Film Festival, the Jerusalem International Film Festival, Filmfest Dresden, and The Philadelphia Film Festival. She has been involved as producer on several films, including URBANIA, starring Dan Futterman, Josh Hamilton, and Alan Cumming, and DEAD BROKE, starring Paul Sorvino, John Glover, Justin Theroux, Tony Roberts and Jill Hennessey.

As Founding Artistic Director of the award-winning Watermark Theater, Nela Wagman has directed over 25 new plays, films and solo works in Manhattan and created and curated the WordFire Festival of Solo Performance. The WordFire Festival has featured premieres by Dael Orlandersmith, Josh Kornbluth, David Cale, Amy Sohn, Lenora Champagne, Barbara Pitts, Toni Schlesinger, and many others.

Wagman has taught workshops in New York and around the country.

Selected Directing Reviews

MY LEFT BREAST by Susan Miller • Actors' Theater of Louisville Humana Festival, Louisville KY (Premiere),

                                                             Watermark Theater NYC (OBIE winner 1995), and National Tours

“A metaphor of resilience… done with a self-aware humor and a literary acuteness that make her hour on the stage an enlarging experience”

 - D. J. R. Bruckner, The New York Times

“Under the direction of Nela Wagman, Miller is eminently likable. She carries on a casual conversation, draping herself over a chair or a desk as if she's settled down to tea with her best friend.”

 - Patti Hartigan, The Boston Globe

MASHA NO HOME by Lloyd Suh • Ensemble Studio Theatre NYC

“The cast is admirably well chosen, and Nela Wagman’s direction is acutely perceptive.  No one extorts laughs, but together these actors inspire two hours of them.”

 - D. J. R. Bruckner, The New York Times

“In a briskly paced staging that blends visceral physicality with dexterous verbal play, director Nela Wagman wins rich performances from her smoothly fused ensemble."

 - Francine Russo, The Village Voice

SUMMER CYCLONE by Amy Fox • Ensemble Studio Theatre NYC

“A fine cast is burnishing the wise compassion of Amy Fox’s “Summer Cyclone” to a warm glow at Ensemble Studio Theater…Under the direction of Nela Wagman, the performances are uniformly commendable and Ms. Stern and Mr. Giacalone prove convincing in the central romance.”

 - Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times

“Playwright Amy Fox is a very graceful, sophisticated writer. Her new play, "Summer Cyclone," isn't afraid to tackle powerful themes and difficult material. As directed by Nela Wagman, the play is honest, poignant, and sincere.”

 - Victor Gluck, Backstage

WAITING AT THE WATER'S EDGE by Lucinda Coxon • Watermark Theater NYC

"Nela Wagman's efficient, simple staging, ballasted by lucid performances...highlights Ms. Coxon's undeniable gifts for building narrative and, in examining forms of loneliness and ambition, for fluidly forging connections between social cause and emotional effect." 

 - Ben Brantley, The New York Times

BLAMING MOM with SOUPY AND ADENA by David Edelstein • Watermark Theater NYC

“Blaming Mom,’ and extended one-act comedy directed by Nela Wagman, is funny enough to obviate cries of ‘Critic, pan thyself,’ even if the obsessions get in the way of theatrical liveliness…Still, when Willie and his equally self-involved girlfriends butt complex-addled heads, the play soars into a sparkling celebration of neurosis that recalls the old Mike Nichols-Elaine May routines. And Patricia Scanlon, as a cripplingly high-strung femme fatale, provides one of the season’s comic high points reading an excruciating exercise for a ‘Fiction as Therapy’ class.”

 - Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Diector Nela Wagman stages these encounters zestily, in short, fast-paced scenes, tossing characters on stage like dice, sometimes in overlapping combinations – boy/girl, boys kvetching/girls bitching, or seesaw sets of mismatched couples.”

 - Francine Russo, The Village Voice

"Soupy and Adena' "is cleverly staged by Nela Wagman, the director of the double bill, and played with delight by the two-member cast.” 

 - Vincent Canby, The New York Times

BONNIE by Ann Marie Healey • Ensemble Studio Theatre NYC

“The performances are just right.”

 - Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times

SEX AND OTHER COLLISIONS by Trista Baldwin • The Assembly NYC

“Director Nela Wagman has staged Baldwin’s brisk comedy-drama with economy and energy.  Confrontations are sharp and transitions clean.  Some of the best moments are the wordless ones, and that’s saying a lot, because Baldwin’s words speak volumes in Wagman’s hands.”

 - Elias Stimac, Show Guide