Founder/Artistic Director
Sheila Kay Davis
Founder/Artistic Director Sheila Kay Davis is the Founder/Artistic Director for the New Professional Theatre. She is responsible for all programmatic and artistic choices. Having spent years as an actress Ms. Davis knew the joys and frustrations that come with being a minority theatre professsional, thus NPT was born. She created the Annual Writers Festival and the NPT Education Program to nuture, expose and support minority writers. Ms. Davis is a seasoned fundraiser and event planner, attracting major corporations and foundations to support NPT.
As a performer she created the role of Ronnette in Little Shop of Horrors and performed in a five year run Off-Broadway (whew!) She has performed in many major regional theatres including the Public theatre and the Hartford Stage. A graduate of Spelman College she received the Alumni Achievement Arts Award from Spelman in 2004; she also received the Arts Award from the World of Women Leaders Conference.
Dramaturg/Literary Manager
Mark Dundas Wood
Mark Dundas Wood has been the Dramaturg/Literary Manager for New Professional Theatre since 2000. Originally from Oregon, he wrote about theatre for The Oregonian and taught English and writing courses at Portland-area colleges before moving to New York in 1997. Wood is a regular contributor to the entertainment trade publication Back Stage, where he writes about theatre, film, and television. His writing has also appeared in such publications as American Theatre, Theater Week, Small Spiral Notebook, and Call Sheet (formerly Ross Reports).
He worked as associate editor on The Back Stage Actors’ Handbook and as project editor on Performance Anxiety, a workbook about stage fright by Eric Maisel, Ph.D. In addition to his work for NPT, Wood has also served as a literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company in Manhattan. He holds MFA degrees in creative writing (University of Oregon 1987) and dramaturgy (Columbia University 2000).