Jessie Field is an award-winning playwright and director. She earned her MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch, and did her undergrad at Brandeis University with a degree in Theatre Arts with a concentration in direction. Brandeis directing credits include Proof, Into the Woods, Rabbit Hole, and the workshop production of Rachel. Jessie also served as AD for Eric Hill for Brandeis Theatre Company’s productions of Closer and She Stoops to Conquer and was Artistic Director of the student-led Free Play Theater Cooperative. Jessie was a founding member of The Crossroad Players, a professional company of Brandeis alumni focused on giving opportunities to young artists, and served as the company’s President and Artistic Director. Jessie directed CP’s premiere production of ‘Night Mother, as well as their second show, My Romantic History, at the A.R.T.’s Oberon theater. She was also hired to direct Clark University’s Sweeney Todd, and Bentley University’s Enron. She spent the '15-'16 Season in Sacramento, California, completing the Directing Apprenticeship at professional theatre company Capital Stage, where she gained a plethora of practical theatre knowledge and skills. During her time at Capstage, Jessie served as AD to Janis Stevens for Stephanie Gularte's adaptation of A Doll’s House and to Peter Mohrmann for The Totalitarians. She also had the honor of directing her fellow apprentices in their showcase, Subculture. Most recently, Jessie directed the world premiere of her new musical La Maupin at the 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival.
As a playwright, Jessie's predominant works are musical collaborations with her brother, composer Jared Field. Their longest collaboration and most produced work is Rachel, a full-length musical about the life of environmentalist and nature writer Rachel Carson. Rachel was first presented as Jessie's senior thesis in 2013 at Brandeis University, where it won the Harold and Mimi Steinberg prize for Best Original Play. The following summer, it was selected as a developmental reading with NYMF. Rachel went on to be selected by the 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival, where it won the award for Outstanding Musical, as well as earning Outstanding Featured Actor awards for Lipica Shah (Marie Rodell) and Roberto Araujo (Julius Hyman). Rachel was next presented as an official selection of NYSummerfest 2017, where a new version featuring a women-only cast was very well-received. Since then, Rachel has been workshopped at the JDT Lab at Guild Hall in the East Hamptons as well as performed at the UCC in Montclair, NJ.
Jessie has also collaborated with Jared on La Maupin, about swordswoman and opera singer, Julie d'Aubigny. La Maupin premiered in the 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival to sold-out houses, and where it went on to win the Audience Favorite award - as well as Outstanding Lead Performance for Ariel de Ment (Julie d'Aubigny), Outstanding Featured Performance for Cassidy Layton (Marquise de Florensac), Outstanding Fight Choreography for Jared Kirby and Tony Mita, and Outstanding Musical Direction for Mark Oleszko. A revised version of La Maupin was presented as a reading at The Tank as a part of 2018 Pridefest. The show also went on to compete in the International MUT Competition in Munich, Germany, where it was awarded first prize (jurypreis.)
Field and Field's first collaboration was Harold! The Musical, a one-act original dark comedy and grant recipient in the 2010 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts.
Field and Field collaborated with Lipica Shah on Voices of Tulia, a musical about the 1999 drug busts in Tulia, Texas and Vanita Gupta, the young civil rights attorney who works on the racially divisive case. Voices of Tulia had a developmental reading with the Boomerang Theatre Company, and was workshopped at a residency at Fresh Ground Pepper. It will continue development at Barn Arts in the fall.
You can learn more about Field and Field musicals HERE.
Jessie completed her first straight play in the summer of 2016: To The West, a family-friendly feminist tale of adventuring Vikings, which was selected as a finalist in the Growing Stage's New Play Reading Festival. It then premiered at Randolph High School, as the fall play.
Jessie is a proud member Cycle 29 and recent graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch. She completed two full length musicals as thesis projects with three wonderful collaborators - Return to Grace with Gabrielle Mirabella and Ernie Bird, and Madame President with Gabrielle Mirabella and Lucy O'Brien. She also completed one-act musical Death's Doors with brilliant composer Sean Eads.
Jessie is currently collaborating with fellow alum James Salem on a musical webseries: "Is This Art Now; a musical in the time of corona." She also co-founded Root Beer Occasion Theatre Company, with fellow alum Brandy Hoang Collier and recently directed RBO's inaugural show, The Living Room Stories. She subsequently directed RBO's Inside Siberia by Mallory Jane Weiss, and co-directed The Garbage Revue, a bad play competition.
Field and Field's first collaboration was Harold! The Musical, a one-act original dark comedy and grant recipient in the 2010 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts.
Field and Field collaborated with Lipica Shah on Voices of Tulia, a musical about the 1999 drug busts in Tulia, Texas and Vanita Gupta, the young civil rights attorney who works on the racially divisive case. Voices of Tulia had a developmental reading with the Boomerang Theatre Company, and was workshopped at a residency at Fresh Ground Pepper. It will continue development at Barn Arts in the fall.
You can learn more about Field and Field musicals HERE.
Jessie completed her first straight play in the summer of 2016: To The West, a family-friendly feminist tale of adventuring Vikings, which was selected as a finalist in the Growing Stage's New Play Reading Festival. It then premiered at Randolph High School, as the fall play.
Jessie is a proud member Cycle 29 and recent graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch. She completed two full length musicals as thesis projects with three wonderful collaborators - Return to Grace with Gabrielle Mirabella and Ernie Bird, and Madame President with Gabrielle Mirabella and Lucy O'Brien. She also completed one-act musical Death's Doors with brilliant composer Sean Eads.
Jessie is currently collaborating with fellow alum James Salem on a musical webseries: "Is This Art Now; a musical in the time of corona." She also co-founded Root Beer Occasion Theatre Company, with fellow alum Brandy Hoang Collier and recently directed RBO's inaugural show, The Living Room Stories. She subsequently directed RBO's Inside Siberia by Mallory Jane Weiss, and co-directed The Garbage Revue, a bad play competition.
Fun Facts
- Jessie was once - unexpectedly during apprentice duties at Capital Stage - captured lurking on the cover of American Theatre Magazine.
- Jessie's an accomplished trombonist/euphonist - still always happy to break out the horns for a gig!
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- Jessie really, really, really likes dogs.
Jessie Field (left), Scout (right)