Board of Directors

STEVE COSSON is a director, writer and Artistic Director of The Civilians. Recently, Jill Sobule’s musical Times Square; the new children’s musical The Abominables, (writer/director, songs by Michael Friedman) at Children’s Theater Company; writer/director of The Undertaking (59E59, BAM Next Wave, Theatre de la Ville, Paris, US Tour); José Rivera’s Another Word for Beauty (Goodman Theatre); Rimbaud in New York (BAM); Michael Friedman and Bess Wohl’s Pretty Filthy; the Off-Broadway revival of The Belle of Amherst starring Joely Richardson; The Great Immensity (The Public Theater, Kansas City Rep); Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a post-electric play (Playwrights Horizons, Woolly Mammoth); This Beautiful City (Vineyard, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Humana Festival and others); Ethel’s Documerica (BAM Next Wave) and many others. With The Civilians he created several works as the first theater company in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.stevecosson.com @stevecosson

Artistic Director

Margaret joined The Civilians in 2017 following a term as the Managing Director for The Anna Deavere Smith Pipeline Project, which centerpiece is the critically acclaimed play "Notes From The Field". Before that Margaret was the Productions Director for Assembly Theatre in the U.K. And was responsible for producing and touring Yael Farber's "NIRBHAYA", a testimonial play about gender-based violence that played to critical acclaim and sell-out houses in New York, London, Delhi, Mumbai, Dublin, Toronto, and Vancouver. Select producing credits include Simon Callow in "Juvenalia" (Edinburgh 2014), "Mies Julie" (London 2013), The Pajama Men (London 2013), "Casus: Knee Deep" (London 2013) and 14 years with Ross Petty Productions (Toronto). From 2009 - 2013 Margaret was the General Manager for Assembly Theatre, a premiere venue at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Managing Director

Amy joined The Civilians in 2018 to produce and direct The Lobby Project in association with Enores! Off-Center. A producer, director, and dramaturg, she is in her sixth season as Managing Director of Colt Coeur Theatre Company, developing and producing 8 World Premiere productions. She is an associated artist with The Woodshed Collective, serving as producer on Kpop, Does it Hurt When I Do This, and Empire Travel Agency. In 2018 she joined The Civilians as And she is a resident director of Hero Theatre Company. She produced the 2015 Prototype Festival production of Kansas City Choir Boy starring Courtney Love and Todd Almond, and the 2017 NYMF production of The Demise. Selected dramaturg/assistant director credits include Only a Kingdom (Guild Hall), Talley’s Folly(Roundabout), The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Roundabout and Hartford Stage), Macbeth (Chicago Shakespare), Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hartford Stage), Motherhood Out Loud (Rose Productions), Culture Clash’s Zorro in Hell (La Jolla Playhouse).

Artistic Associate

R&D Program Director

Literary Associate

Development Consultants

Financial Manager

Suany Chough has served The Civilians as a board member since 2016. She is Director of Project Development for The Perelman Center for Performing Arts, a new cultural organization currently under construction at the World Trade Center.

Suany has a background in planning, design and construction, with experience on large-scale projects including the revitalization of Times Square, the development of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, and the redevelopment of Governor’s Island. She served on the board of City CarShare, a nonprofit carsharing organization in San Francisco, from 2002 until 2013.

Chair

Managing Director, Citigroup

Treasurer

STEVE COSSON is a director, writer and Artistic Director of The Civilians. Recently, Jill Sobule’s musical Times Square; the new children’s musical The Abominables, (writer/director, songs by Michael Friedman) at Children’s Theater Company; writer/director of The Undertaking (59E59, BAM Next Wave, Theatre de la Ville, Paris, US Tour); José Rivera’s Another Word for Beauty (Goodman Theatre); Rimbaud in New York (BAM); Michael Friedman and Bess Wohl’s Pretty Filthy; the Off-Broadway revival of The Belle of Amherst starring Joely Richardson; The Great Immensity (The Public Theater, Kansas City Rep); Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a post-electric play (Playwrights Horizons, Woolly Mammoth); This Beautiful City (Vineyard, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Humana Festival and others); Ethel’s Documerica (BAM Next Wave) and many others. With The Civilians he created several works as the first theater company in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.stevecosson.com @stevecosson

Artistic Director

Assistant Director Foundation Partnerships, UNICEF

Globe Brand/Marketing Consultant

Secretary

Assistant Managing Editor, Crain's New York

Development Consultant

Jennifer is a writer/producer/actor. She is currently working on Buzzer a series of fictional shorts with writer Tracey Scott Wilson and director Anne Kauffman. Buzzer explores the myth of a post-racial American society through the lens of gentrification. Jennifer produced the feature length documentary, Mentor, directed by Alix Lambert. Mentor was an official selection at the 2014 Austin Film Festival and won honorable mention for best doc at the 2014 Woodstock Film Festival. She also produced the shorts Tiffany (PBS) and The Unknown Seven (Official selection 2014 Nantucket Film Festival). Her pilot Art House (which she co-wrote with Robbie Sublett) was chosen for the 2016 BLACKLIST TV Staff Writing book.  Jennifer is a founding associate artist of the OBIE award-winning theatre company, The Civilians. With The Civilians she has worked on Mr. Burns, I Am Nobody's Lunch, Gone Missing, The Ladies, Canard, Canard, Goose. and You Better Sit Down: tales from my parents’ divorce. You Better Sit Down (of which she co-wrote and conceived) was an interactive theatre piece that had digital partnerships with WNYC and the Huffington Post. Jennifer wrote and hosted shows on TV Food Network and WE and has created digital projects for ABC/Disney, Fremantle Media, and FMX.  As an actress, Jennifer has worked at Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, P.S. 122, Cherry Lane, Barrow Street, Williamstown, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and ART, among others. She has appeared on the NBC shows ER, Profiler, and Law & Order and in numerous national commercials.  She received her MFA from UCSD. She currently teaches at NYU.

Associate Artist

Executive Vice President and CFO, Extensis

In a New Yorker essay following his untimely death at 41, Sarah Larson described Michael as “a brilliant and prolific composer and lyricist, a pianist, a thinker, a mile-a-minute talker, a gesticulator, a person who dazzled and could leave you dizzied—not just by his talent and intelligence but by his kindness and humanity, which were always at the forefront of his work.” Michael’s shows have filled the stages of numerous Off Broadway and regional theaters. His best-known works include the Broadway musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Fortress of Solitude (The Public Theater), Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare in the Park), as well as ten original works with the company he co-founded, The Civilians, including the long-running hit Gone Missing, This Beautiful City and Pretty Filthy. Often working with verbatim interviews as source material, Michael showed an uncanny ability to draw out expansive ideas from the distillation of a single human voice. He traveled the country before the 2016 election, creating a series of songs based on interviews for The New Yorker Radio Hour. Other career highlights include a retrospective concert at Lincoln Center, and an Obie for sustained excellence in 2007 among many other awards. At the time of his death, he was the Artist in Residence and Director of the Public Forum at the Public Theater and was also the Artistic Director of City Center Encores! Off-Center.