Zoe Senese-Grossberg

Zoe Senese-Grossberg (she/her/hers) is a New York based director, playwright, dramaturg, and teaching artist. Her work shifts from highly stylized movement based works to quiet actor driven dramas. Much of her work are multi-hour epics revolving around historic subject matter ranging in time periods from Medieval England to the near future. Themes are often around Jewish identity and diaspora, queerness, gender, coming of age, and human sexuality. She is fascinated by what turns people on and pulls them apart. Her plays have been nationally ranked with her play Lay The Bent To The Bonny Broom being a 2023 semi-finalist for the National Playwright’s Conference and her play Bedfellows being a finalist for the Rootstock Reading Series. Directing credits include Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando, an original adaptation of Hamlet, Caridad Svich’s 12 Ophelias, Karel Cavek’s R.U.R., The Seagull, the world premiere for BOY MY GREATNESS, and if i live until i be a man- which she devised with frequent collaborators Sophie Falvey and Rae Bell and premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024. Her play BOY MY GREATNESS premiered in March 2024 to rave reviews calling it “a masterpiece of intricately woven stories and ruminations on gender.” BOY MY GREATNESS was also embraced by audiences both in New York and virtually- where it went viral on TikTok. It had an encore regional tour in September of 2024. The associate artistic director for The Firebird Project, she has directed, assistant directed, dramaturged, and adapted over seven productions with them from 2017 onwards. Zoe began her training as a 2017 Powerhouse Training Company Directing Apprentice where she had an observership with Scott Ellis for the workshop of Amy and the Orphans. She also was the assistant producer on the world premiere of Winter Miller’s No One Is Forgotten at Rattlestick Playwright Theater. She worked under Thomas Cote as an intern at the Workshop Theater from 2016-2017 and under Heather Harvey on the world premiere of Bars at Four Walls Theater. As a playwright, her training began at Arts Connection’s TRAC program under Winter Miller. She later studied under Jeffrey Joseph with Manhattan Theater Club’s WriteNow program and Noelle Ghoussaini with TDF’s WordLab. In college, she studied playwriting under Kari Barclay and Caroline Jackson-Smith. Her work has received awards from The Eugene O’Neill Center, YoungArts, and Penguin Random House. With her background as a classically trained musician, having studied voice at Fiorello H. Laguardia High School for Music & Art and the Performing Arts, and her passion for folk music, most of her work as both a writer and a director incorporates elements of music and song. She has worked as a teaching artist at Firebird Youth Theater, New Voices Middle School through NIA Community Services, and Teachers & Writers Collaborative. She has taught playwriting classes in an independent capacity as well as worked as a freelance playwriting tutor and monologue coach. Zoe has a great passion for engaging young people with the world of theater and hopes she can give them the gifts so many wonderful teachers gave to her throughout her education. Zoe graduated Oberlin College with a B.A. in Theater and English with High Honors. She also received the Nash Drama Award upon graduation. Zoe is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. Upcoming: Directing and adapting Frankenstein at the Firebird Project.