MIRANDA CORNELL (she/her) is a Jewpanese New York-based theater director, educator, and sometimes writer born and bred in Brooklyn, NY. She aims to tell stories that engage the dialectic, the sincere, and the strange. 

She has directed and developed work with Roundabout, NYTW, Clubbed Thumb, Ma-Yi, Playwrights Realm, The New Group, Cleveland Play House, Stages Houston, Yale Summer Cabaret, Prospect Theater Company, the National Asian Artist Project, Mercury Store, EST/Youngblood, 24 Hour Plays, The Brick, Leviathan Lab, YES Theatre, New Ohio/Ice Factory, NYMF, Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, Moxie Arts, and universities around the country. Recent productions include Lloyd Suh’s The Heart Sellers (Stages), CHAIRS by Hayley Stahl (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks), and Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea by Julia Izumi (The New School, College of Performing Arts).

Miranda was the 2020 Van Lier Fellow in Theater at the Asian American Arts Alliance, the inaugural Directing Apprentice at Dear Evan Hansen, the Roundabout Directors Group (Cohort 2), a NYTW 2050 Artistic Fellow, and a New Play Directing Fellow at Clubbed Thumb. 

She has served as associate/resident/assistant director to Danya Taymor, Chay Yew, Robert Icke, Rachel Chavkin, Michael Greif, and more. Productions include The Outsiders (Broadway/La Jolla Playhouse, 4 Tony Awards), The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory), Dear Evan Hansen (Broadway and North American tour), Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord (NYTW/LJP/Portland Center Stage, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), and others at the Armory, LJP, McCarter Theatre Center, New York Stage & Film, and The TEAM. 

Outside of directing, she was seen in Pocket Universe’s all-female Julius Caesar as Casca, which was featured for its fresh take in the New York Times in July 2017.  She was also the founding Artistic Director of Semicolon Theatre Company, a company dedicated to producing the work of young theater artists and administrators professionally in New York. Alongside creative partner Zoe Kamil, she was named a ‘Woman to Watch’ by The Interval in 2016 at the age of 19.

She holds BAs in Drama and Education at Vassar College, where she was awarded the Molly Thacher Kazan Prize for her direction of Revolt. She said. Revolt again. and received top honors on her thesis in Educational Studies about socially engaged and culturally reflexive curriculum in adolescent theater classrooms. 

CURRENTLY:

  • Directing the world premiere of Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s Indian Princesses at La Jolla Playhouse. June-July 2025, tickets soon to be available here.

  • Associate & Resident Director of The Outsiders - winner of 4 Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Direction of Musical for Danya Taymor - currently running at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway and upcoming North American Tour

  • Directing a reading of Alexa Derman’s The Creature (Honorable Mention for the 2024 Relentless Award) as part of Playwrights Realm’s INK’d Festival of New Plays. April 7th at 3pm and 7pm.

  • Before we head out to San Diego, there will be a reading of Indian Princesses at Round House Theater’s Bonnie Hammerschlag National Capital New Play Festival. Showings on 4/17 at 8pm and 4/19 at 2:30pm - tickets available here.