Braden Abraham biography

Braden Abraham
ARTISTIC director

EMAIL

Braden Abraham joined Writers Theatre as Artistic Director in 2023. He comes to Writers from Seattle Rep, the largest resident theatre in the Pacific Northwest, where he advanced the organization as a director and producer, including the development and premiere of many new plays. He directed six world premieres for Seattle Rep and over 20 productions including: True West, Clybourne Park, Photograph 51, Ibsen in Chicago, Betrayal, Luna Gale, A View from the Bridge, A Great Wilderness, Breakin’ Hearts and Takin’ Names, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. 

Among his initiatives as Artistic Director, Braden committed Seattle Rep as one of the first partner theaters to bring the Public Theater’s model for the Public Works program across the country. Seattle Rep’s Public Works strengthens community connection through making ambitious productions of participatory theater. Braden also re-envisioned the New Play Program, commissioning and premiering plays by Anna Zeigler, Samuel D. Hunter, David Grimm, Justin Huertas, Samantha Silva, Cheryl L. West, and Karen Hartman, and supported the work of dozens of playwrights and directors through premieres and the Other Season development lab. Many projects developed through this program went on to acclaimed runs at Seattle Rep and around the country including Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Come From Away, Cheryl L. West’s Shout Sister Shout!, Erica Schmidt’s Mac Beth, and Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice.  Under his leadership, Seattle Rep was the only theater outside New York and London to present David Byrne’s Here Lies Love. Most recently, Braden initiated 20x30: Reimagine the Anthropocene, to commission twenty new plays by the year 2030, and New Directions, a unique commissioning program designed to support generative work from directors. 

Around the country, Braden has developed new work at Ojai, O’Neill, Denver Center, and Perseverance Theatre. He has been a guest artist at Stanford, Gonzaga, Seattle University, and the University of Idaho. He conceived and developed Way Stations, a series of interactive walking tours in Seattle for the Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards and is the co-creator of Gordon Hempton: Let it Happen, an audio installation about the life and work of Emmy-Award winning sound ecologist Gordon Hempton. He is married to Cheyenne Casebier and the proud papa of Phoenix Faye Abraham.