Jade King Carroll
Director & Producing Artistic Director
Photo by Mical Hutson
Jade King Carroll a distinguished director specializing in new play development, and the Producing Artistic Director of Chautauqua Theater Company.
Carroll has directed over 60 classical and contemporary productions nationwide at renowned venues including Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C., Lincoln Center Institute, New York Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theatre Center, Atlantic Theatre, Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage, and Roundhouse. Most recently, she directed Chisa Hutchinson’s Amerikin at Primary Stages. Notable credits include Proof of Love, Detroit ’67, Having Our Say, Red Velvet, and multiple productions of August Wilson’s work—she is one of the few directors to have worked on every play in Wilson’s Century Cycle.
As a director of audio plays, you can find her work with Audible, Marvel, and Broadway Podcast Network. As an educator Jade has taught, guest lectured and directed at Juilliard, Rutgers, NYU, Princeton, and many more. She has an award from the August Wilson Estate as well as from her alma mater, SUNY New Paltz.
As CTC’s Producing Artistic Director, Carroll is in the midst of her third season of programming innovative new works, including the world premieres of tiny father by Mike Lew (a co-production with Barrington Stage Company) and commissioned pieces, The Light and The Dark (the Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi) by Kate Hamill (co-produced with off-Broadway’s Primary Stages in NYC) and the world premiere of The Witnesses by C.A. Johnson. She has also developed works by playwrights Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, Chisa Hutchinson, Harrison David Rivers, Anna Ziegler, C.A. Johnson, Sharyn Rothstein, Hilary Bettis, Vichet Chum, and James Anthony Tyler.
Under her leadership, CTC has secured two NYSCA grants and partnered with the Telsey Office for casting and the Drama League to expand its directing fellows’ program. Current commissions include new works by Sharyn Rothstein, Zora Howard, and CTC’s first musical, with a dynamic creative team featuring music and lyrics by Christopher Jackson, book by Candrice Jones and Kwame Alexander, and additional lyrics by Jones. Carroll will direct the production with Tony Award-winner Thomas Kail joining as creative consultant.
Carroll and CTC have successfully raised $11.5 million for the new Roe Green Theater Center, which will house CTC offices, rehearsal spaces, a new prop shop, dressing rooms, a green room, and a black box theater complete with a lobby and ADR bar.
News
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Jade King Carroll Appointed as Producing Artistic Director of Chautauqua Theater Company
Chautauqua Institution today announced the appointment of the celebrated director Jade King Carroll as Producing Artistic Director of its resident Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC) following an extensive national search. In this role, Carroll will program and oversee the company’s robust annual summer season of professional productions, a growing new work development program, and a renowned conservatory that supports early-career artists.
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‘Amerikin’: A Play That Mines Identity, Race, Empathy And The Lies We Tell Ourselves
“It confronts the destructive impact of hatred in our society, exploring how it can drive individuals to madness,” adds Carroll. “It is an important human story that resonates with relevance, discomfort, humor, and vibrancy. The characters, the dialogue and ensemble work that this allows is pretty exceptional as well.”
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Cicely Tyson: Grace, Poise, Mischief, and Always Truth
In Memoriam by Jade King Carroll
“Her purpose was powerful: It resonated in everything she did, and her art will continue to carry us forward. She brought each of her characters to life truthfully and completely. She was mesmerizing to watch onstage. She could guide an audience’s every breath and open hearts and minds with her bravery of soul and commitment to the truth. She was luminous. She was Cicely Tyson, and there will never be another.”
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C.A. Johnson's Tell Me You're Dying Sets 2025 World Premiere
New York's Chautauqua Theater Company, the resident theatre company of Chautauqua Institution, will present the world premiere of C.A. Johnson's Tell Me You’re Dying next year.
CTC Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll will direct the CTC-commissioned work in August 2025 during the final two weeks of the nine-week Summer Assembly. Casting and additional creative team members will be announced at a later date.
Johnson's play is described as "a post-apocalyptic lesbian love story." The new work follows Millicent and her chosen family who are facing illness, mortality, and the shared urgency of dwindling time. goes here