Nataki Garrett is the Associate Artistic Director of CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP) as well as the Associate Dean and the Co-Head of Undergraduate Acting for CalArts School of Theater. She is a Company Member at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company a recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors and a member of SDC.
Nataki Garrett is co-Artistic Director of BLANK THE DOG PRODUCTIONS (BTD) a LA/NYC based ensemble Theater Company, which is celebrating its 10th year and is dedicated to developing and fostering new work by emerging, adventurous and experimental artists. Her most recent BTD projects include Carolyn Bryant. Carolyn Bryant focuses on the decades long silence of the woman for whom Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955 Carolyn Bryant was recently awarded a MAPFUND Grant and had previously received funding from the Trans-Atlantic Consortium. Additional BTD Productions include: Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist by Thomas Bradshaw; Week #29 of 365 Plays/Days by Suzan-Lori Parks premiered; Machinal by Sophie Treadwell; Ugly from the Front written and Performed by Amanda Gunderson premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005.
Garrett’s forte and passion is in the fostering and development of new work. Garrett recently directed a stage reading of Aziza Barnes’ BLKS at Ojai Playwrights Conference. She is currently in pre-production for Native Son by Nambi Kelly at Antaeus Theatre Company in April 2017. She will remount An Octaroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company next summer after a successful run in June 2016. She directed the same play at Mixed Blood Theater Company in Fall 2015 to much critical acclaim.
In 2008 Garrett received a NAACP Theatre Award nomination for Best Director for Black Women State of the Union: An Evening of Plays by Black Women. She directed the first professional production of Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins which received Ovation nominations for Best Production (The Matrix Theater), Best Ensemble, Best Costumes; Best Featured Actress; Best Choreography and was Winner of the Garland Award for Best Ensemble. She staged two operas: Wet Libretto by Terese Svoboda and Sucktion by Douglas Kearney. Both were scored by the world-renowned composer Anne Lebaron and performed at REDCAT in Los Angeles. Garrett has directed several projects in Los Angeles for Skylight Theatre Company, Lower Depths Theater, The Matrix Theater Company, Watts Village Theater Company, The Company of Angels, Celebration Theater Company, REDCAT, CALARTS CNP, Calarts School of Theater, Pomona College, Occidental College, Pasadena Playhouse and many more. She has directed in theaters across the country including Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Mixed-Blood Theater, Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, Martin E. Segal Theater, UT Austin, Dartmouth College, NYU Tisch School of the Arts and many more. She has worked internationally in Bellagio, Italy; Edinburgh, Scotland; Paris, France; and in Rwanda and Uganda. her work can be heard on the radio through L.A. Theatre Works audio theatre collection and for NPR, recorded live at the Skirball Cultural Arts Center.