Tara Ahmadinejad

Tara Ahmadinejad

Tara Ahmadinejad is an NYC-based director, theater-maker, and co-founding member of the theater collective Piehole. She has directed and co-authored boundary-pushing live art for theaters, galleries, and digital spaces.

Recent Piehole works include Christmas Mountain (an interactive narrative installation at WNYC’s The Greene Space, featuring the voice of WNYC’s own Brian Lehrer, as a mouse), and Disclaimer (co-directed/written/performed by Tara), part of The Public’s Under the Radar Festival, recipient of the NYC Women’s Fund, and nominated for a Drama League Award. Prior to that, Piehole collaborated with the LA-based Tender Claws on the award-winning virtual reality experience The Under Presents (Oculus, Emmy Finalist) and an award-winning augmented reality app Tendar (Sundance).

During the pandemic, Tara brought her interdisciplinary experience to her new play directing work, collaborating with a host of writers on digital theater productions, including Satoko Ichihara (Japan Society), Eliza Bent (New Georges), Rinne Groff (Clubbed Thumb), and Scarlet Kim (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). Her extensive work in digital theater and cross-disciplinary collaboration led her to become the Resident Futurist at the Philadelphia-based Pig Iron Theater Company.

Recent in-person directing credits: Liza Birkenmeier’s Grief Hotel produced by Clubbed Thumb, Sarah Einspanier’s Lunch Bunch, produced by The Play Company and Clubbed Thumb, and the new opera mɔɹnɪŋ [mourning/morning] by Gelsey Bell, produced as part of the Prototype Festival at HERE Arts Center.

She has taught directing and devised theater at Columbia University, Barnard College, and Harvard University. Tara is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and a New Georges Affiliated Artist. MFA Directing, Columbia University; BA Theater Arts and BA International Relations (Politics, Culture, and Identity), Brown University.