News

Recent and Upcoming Projects
  • March 2022, Volunteering as Director at 52ND STREET PROJECT
  • April 2022, Directing Workshop of FULL CONTACT by Ariel Estrada
  • May 2022, producing reading of new short plays by students of DREAMing Out Loud, a playwriting program for immigrant, undocumented, DACA writers
  • May 2022, awarded as a member of the Orchard Project's 2022 Greenhouse Lab to develop a new multimedia piece about neurodiversity and bipolar disorder
  • May-June 2022, Community Engagement with Community Partners for Somi Kokoma's DREAMING ZENZILE
  • June 2022, Written and Performing a new short play called Vincent and his Ear at the Tank
  • July 2022, Teaching LGBTQIA program for elders and youth on Fire Island
Picture
Photo by Brian LaPerche
Picture
Photo by Prisca Choe
My name is Gaven, rhymes with "Raven"... he/they/siya. I am a brown queer Asian American theatre maker based in New York City. In addition to my work as a dramaturg, director, and playwright, I am the Community Engagement Associate at New York Theatre Workshop. I am a member of Theatre Communications Group's Rising Leaders of Color 2021-22 Cohort. As an artist living with Bipolar Disorder, I am an advocate for empathetic and responsible representation of persons with mental illness & disabilities and neurodiversity on and off-stage.

​​I have experience with new play development, production dramaturgy, community & audience engagement, direction, and arts administration. I am a globally conscious and interdisciplinary artist who believes that theatre is a transformative tool for underrepresented communities to imagine and create radically new inclusive worlds. I continue to work closely with LGBTQIA+ community leaders, artists with disabilities, and international artists whose work focus on Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, and Belonging (EDIB) Initiatives. I believe in an artistic collaborative process that centers on feminist and queer concepts of radical compassion, love, empathy, and community-building. I advocate for LGBTQIA+ and feminist issues, mental health awareness, inclusive accessible theatre, and advancement of diverse representation of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) people on and off U.S. stages. I have had the honor to intern and work at various companies in various artistic, administrative, and dramaturgical positions: The Juilliard School Drama Division, Musical Theatre Factory, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, New York Theater Workshop, Ma-Yi Theatre, the TEAM, Playhouse on the Square (Memphis, TN), and Bremen Schaulspielhaus. B.A. American Studies, Dickinson College; M.F.A. Dramaturgy, University of Massachusetts Amherst; and graduate certificate of Advanced Feminist Studies from the UMass Amherst Women, Gender, and Sexualities Department. I am also a proud former teacher of Teach for America's Memphis Corps from 2012 to 2014. I completed a year-long professional apprenticeship in the Drama Division at The Juilliard School.