While others may have been discouraged by allegations of a toxic workplace at Spooky Action Theater, Elizabeth Dinkova was drawn toward the opportunity to better nurture the emotional safety of artists and restore the local theater community’s trust.
As of May 1, Dinkova is Spooky Action’s second-ever artistic director in its nearly two-decade history and the first immigrant woman to take the role. She is a graduate of the MFA directing program at the Yale School of Drama, where she received the Julian Milton Kaufman prize for directing.
Dinkova’s sense of inspiration outweighed any understandable nerves about leading Spooky Action Theater following its recent turmoil. The tangible fearlessness of remaining staff and board members captivated her. More specifically, “something was exciting about how they discussed risk-taking artistically while mediating a real need for safety in the workplace,” Dinkova tells City Paper.
Dinkova felt further comforted by transitional steps taken to restore community connection under the temporary leadership of Gavin Witt. Per SAT’s hiring announcement, Witt led the four-month nationwide search for a new artistic director alongside a search committee consisting of the theater’s board of directors. “There was a throughline of continuity,” Dinkova says. “I felt set up for success.”
Dinkova’s new appointment in D.C. is a homecoming of sorts: She apprenticed at Studio Theatre a decade ago. Though she comes back to D.C. following a long stint in Georgia—most recently as the associate artistic director at Atlanta’s 7 Stages Theatre—Dinkova says she often yearned for the abundance of diverse voices and theatrical forms she experienced as a budding theater professional in D.C. “I always thought about coming back,” Dinkova says.
Her physical relocation from the South to the nation’s capital also parallels an internal shift regarding how Dinkova relates to her immigrant roots. A Bulgarian native, what once felt “painful and complicated” now “humbles and empowers” her. When asked how her immigrant identity uniquely equips her to guide the theater during this critical transition period, Dinkova says her experiences—fostering homes in multiple cities, often while feeling like a “permanent outsider”—have allowed her to “look at situations with a critical distance while maintaining a global perspective.” She’s sensitive to how power dynamics manifest on different scales, and is committed to improving both her cultural competency and that of the organizational spaces she finds herself in.
These perspectives are evident in Dinkova’s immediate priorities as Spooky Action’s artistic director. Since May, the theater has focused on formalizing feedback, efficiency, and accountability structures into their productions and postmortem discussions. Developing such mechanisms ensures safe space is intentionally protected for artists to speak up moving forward. Artistic priorities include maximizing the theater’s unique residence inside the Universalist National Memorial Church on 16th Street NW, and ensuring its programming reflects the SAT community’s passion projects, not just Dinkova’s artistic interests. In the months since her D.C. return, she has been speaking with existing artists, and newcomers like herself, “to create exciting propositions for the [2023-24] season.”
While Dinkova is excited about the artistic possibilities ahead, she wants to retain “the magical and transformative experiences for the audience” that Spooky Action is known for. (Per SAT’s website, the theater was founded to “offer more plays that require audiences to participate with their imaginations.”) She also seeks to strengthen the interplay of global topics through local voices that the theater has been increasingly cultivating in years past. At the time of our conversation in late August, the theater was preparing for two mainstage productions and one development workshop, which altogether Dinkova describes as “a mix of global voices realized in local ways, each with a strong emotional journey.”
Spooky Action’s 2023-24 season, which kicks off in October, includes Agreste (Drylands) by Brazilian playwright, Newton Moreno; Frontiéres sans Frontiéres by Phillip Howze, a fellow graduate of Yale School of Drama; and Cracking Zeus by Christopher Hampton. Describing the second of the two upcoming main-stage productions, Frontiéres sans Frontiéres, Dinkova says Howze’s experimental satire is unlike anything she’s seen before. The play offers a type of field, form, and life-changing story that Dinkova hopes will become Spooky Action Theater’s brand moving forward.
Following the pandemic, small theaters across the country have dealt with an array of difficulties, from limited funding to changing leadership to addressing issues of toxicity. Spooky Action is no exception. But still, Dinkova is optimistic. “It might be delusional, but we have to believe we can propose utopias in the theater,” she says. “Where else can we propose them otherwise?”
Spooky Action’s 2023-2024 season, under Elizabeth Dinkova, kicks off with Agreste (Drylands), directed by Danilo Gambini, running Oct. 26 to Nov. 19. spookyaction.org.