Theater director & administrator

Borna Barzin is an Iranian-American director, playwright, and arts administrator based in Brooklyn. He has made work with New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, National Queer Theater, NYU Tisch, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Sibiu International Theater Festival in Romania. He completed residencies and fellowships with Roundabout, Mercury Store, Colt Coeur, and NYTW. His play "HELL IS" was selected as a part of Egg & Spoon Theater's Incubate NYC Program. He is the current Artistic Programs Associate at Ma-Yi Theater Company.

Borna began working in theater as the Casting Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, where he worked on projects like the Broadway transfer of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, The National Tour of What the Constitution Means to Me, Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City, Celine Song’s Endlings, Clare Barron’s adaptation of Three Sisters directed by Sam Gold starring Oscar Isaac, Greta Gerwig, and Steve Bucchemi (canceled during the COVID Pandemic), and other projects at Studio Theater, BARD Summerscape, and Shakespeare Theater in DC. He continued to work in casting as the Associate Casting Director of the National Tour of Daniel Fish’s reimagined Oklahoma! with Artios-Award Winning Casting Director, Taylor Williams.

Borna worked on two plays with Victor I. Cazares: Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall which was produced by New York Theatre Workshop virtually, and <<when we write with ashes>> produced by National Queer Theater that performed at the United Nations and Lincoln Center. He has gone on to develop new work with playwrights such as Charles Mee, lily trejo gonzalez, Shayan Lotfi, Juliany Tavares, Max Wolf Friedlich, Ray Yamanouchi, and more. He has served as the Associate or Assistant Director on many productions with directors such as Rachel Chavkin, Les Waters, Leigh Silverman, and Rebecca Taichman; including the Pultizer-Prize Winning production of Sanaz Toossi’s English at the Atlantic Theater.

Borna has written two plays, “HELL IS” and “Like This” — you can learn more about them on New Play Exchange.