Kim Weild
Kim Weild is Professor of Directing and Chair of the John Wells Directing Program at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama, where she defines and advances its artistic and educational vision, curriculum, productions, student mentorship, and connections to the profession. Under her leadership, the program has doubled its fully funded graduate cohort, expanded its production resources and professional-development support, strengthened its partnerships with The Drama League, SDC, regional, and national theatres. She teaches graduate directing courses, mentors emerging directors throughout their training and production work, and serves on the CMU Folger Shakespeare Institute Advisory Council; her teaching and mentorship were recognized with the 2025 School of Drama Excellence in Teaching Award.
Kim Weild is an award-winning director, educator, artistic leader, and new-work developer whose work spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, theatre, opera, dance, film, and emerging media. She has directed more than 100 productions, workshops, and interdisciplinary performance projects presented nationally and internationally. Her work has appeared at Shakespeare’s Globe, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, the Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Teatro alla Scala. A Drama Desk Award nominee Weild creates formally adventurous work that reimagines classics, develops new theatrical languages, and positions difference as an engine of artistic innovation.
Weild is Professor of Directing and Chair of the John Wells Directing Program where she has served as chair since 2019. Under her leadership, the program has doubled its fully funded graduate cohort from two to four directors annually, established an endowed production fund, Bridge to the Profession support, and forged professional partnerships with The Drama League, SDC, local, regional and international theaters. She has expanded the curriculum to include directing for film, devised performance, and interdisciplinary collaboration—preparing directors to enter the field and build its future. Her pedagogy unites conservatory rigor, intellectual curiosity, professional practice, and ethical leadership. She received the 2025 School of Drama Excellence in Teaching Award.
Weild recently directed the inaugural production of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for New Work Development: Tony Award-winning playwright Jeff Whitty’s MIDSUMMER!, presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in partnership with Play On! Shakespeare. The production was designed, managed and acted by CMU students. She recently also directed the world premiere of LM Feldman’s bilingual ASL/English play Another Kind of Silence at City Theatre.
An international leader in bilingual ASL/spoken English performance, disability aesthetics, and directing pedagogy, Weild is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Arts Projects award and the principal investigator of Shakespeare & ASL: Poetics and Performance, in collaboration with Alexandria Wailes, Andrew Morrill, and Katherine Williams. She was also co-creator and co-artistic lead of The Apothetae Residency at The Public Theater and is the founding artistic director of Our Voices.
As director and developmental collaborator on Keith Hamilton Cobb’s multi-award winning American Moor, Weild shaped the play across eight years of development and production. The work garnered an Elliot Norton Award, two AUDELCO Awards, and two IRNE Awards premiering Off-Broadway at Cherry Lane Theatre. Published by Methuen Drama and taught nationally and internationally, it is held in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s permanent collection and filmed for the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Weild’s Broadway credits include serving as Associate Director of Amazing Grace and three productions directed by Michael Blakemore: Deuce, Is He Dead?, and Blithe Spirit. She was a finalist for the 2022 Alan Schneider Director Award and the inaugural recipient of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s Guest Artist Initiative. Her artist residencies and fellowships include the Park Avenue Armory Artist Residency, the Archive Residency, the Kennedy Center Fellowship, the Shubert Fellowship, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival Foeller Fellowship.