Start Date: January 4, 2027
Full/Part time: Full-time
Location: Midtown Manhattan, New York, NY
Schedule: Hybrid with in-person required 2-3 days/week, additional in-person time required during production or events, including some evenings and weekends
Salary & Benefits: $62,000-$65,000 / year + HRA + transit benefits

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

This Associate Producer will be involved in almost every aspect of the company’s work that the Artistic Director is involved in, which encompasses a wide range of tasks, some of them operational, administrative, and related to fundraising. We want to clearly state that we are looking for someone who will thrive as part of a small, hands-on staff that prioritizes critical thinking, constructive communication, and flexibility. 

Waterwell creates and produces new projects in two key ways. Strong candidates for the Associate Producer will bring a strong skill set around making theater in a wide range of different settings, with a wide range of different stakeholders, that will prepare them to work deeply on both arms of Waterwell’s artistic programs: 

1. Productions: Artistically daring and emotionally potent, we tell stories that inspire, entertain, and provoke. Productions typically take place in a theater, with some elements of production design and process that align with many new play development processes.

2. Responsive Projects: Visceral and urgent, we create cultural projects that make robust contributions to the work of organizers, policy leaders and service providers. Responsive Projects are often instigated by a partner organization who commissions Waterwell to create a new project from scratch, often on a very fast timeline to be performed in an unusual and/or site-specific setting. Recent examples include: a short play performed in the United Nations during the opening day of the 2026 General Assembly; a re-enactment of an overseas refugee interview as a site-specific performance at the Council on Foreign Relations NYC headquarters.

The Associate Producer’s tasks will include, but not be limited to, the following:

• Producing: 

  • Secure venues for rehearsals + productions, often outside conventional performance venues

  • Line Producing: draft calendars and budgets, liaise with production management/designers/stage managers, create programs and signage, implement ticketing systems, etc.

  • Audience-building

  • Assist with budgets, and to a limited extent, contracts

  • Provide company management support

• Community Partnerships:

  • Build new Partner relationships and support ongoing relationships with current Partners

  • Invest in Waterwell’s evolving best practices of creating projects for and alongside Partners

  • Please note that a familiarity or direct experience with the building blocks of community organizing will be a big bonus for this position

• Artistic:

  • Scout projects, read scripts, get to know the work of artists and potential partners

  • Support the development of new work, produce workshops with a strong investment in process and artistic excellence

  • Curate + support creative teams

  • Dramaturgy + research

  • Serve as on-site liaison for rehearsals, workshops, performances, etc.

• Administrative and Scheduling:

  • Coordinate meetings + scheduling, both internally and externally, as part of overall project management

  • Email correspondence, sometimes on behalf of Artistic Director

  • Maintain + create organizational systems

  • Errands, some engagement with processing receipts, accounting, and payroll processes

• Development + Fundraising:

  • Proposal + pitch writing

  • Grant-writing + research

  • Support fundraising events

  • Showcase artistic work for individual donors + funders

The Associate Producer would take a key, often lead role in aspects of these upcoming projects:

MORE CITIES, MORE STORIES 
We are currently building out a project design to build on the success of STORIES FROM THE CITY OF IMMIGRANTS, an evening of 13 stories and 1 song that vividly bring to life the vital role immigrants play in New York City's past, present and future. Poignant, funny, emotional, and surprising, these stories span 125 years and many countries of origin, creating a visceral experience of the epic journeys so many people have taken to make NYC their home. We now have a vision to expand this project to 12 other cities across the country in 2027 + 2028. This model of creating cultural events can build renewed connections with the immigrant experience. Waterwell’ s vision is to facilitate partnerships between arts organizations and immigration advocacy and/or direct services organizations in 12 cities around the country. Partners will create an evening of story-telling that reflects experiences of people who have immigrated to that city in the last 150 years.

THE FORD / HILL PROJECT
Created by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel, this is a project that turns the verbatim testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Anita Hill in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee into a 65 minute performance project, with a cast of 4 actors who are hearing and then repeating the real-life audio of the hearings through in-ear monitors. This project premiered in 2024, and has gone on to encore runs at the Under the Radar Festival, BAM, REDCAT, Long Wharf, Middlebury and Williams colleges. This project might continue to tour in 2027 and 2028 in partnership with co-producers ShowShow.

WORLD PREMIERE
We are currently exploring a producing plan for the world premiere of a new play, by an international writer in Spring 2027.

We are looking for a self-starter who is an exemplary communicator and passionate art-maker, and ideally someone who is interested in a professional journey that includes producing, and will likely find the rhythm of the work at Waterwell more compatible with other professional endeavors. 

We value kindness, generosity, and flexibility as fundamental aspects of our office and producing culture. Strong verbal communication skills, a capacity for writing that is both clear and nuanced, and the ability to work independently are a must. 

A working knowledge and strong facility with G Suite (Gmail, Drive, Sheets, Docs, etc.) and Microsoft Office Suite is required, along with a familiarity with contemporary creative practices and the landscape of artistic organizations making inroads into cultural strategy, narrative change, or impact producing. 

Candidates with 3-5 years of experience in the theater industry will likely be more competitive, though we are very open-minded about how a wide range of professional experiences could prepare someone for this position.  

If you believe that you could excel in this role but don't meet all the qualifications listed in this description, we strongly encourage you to apply. We acknowledge that access and opportunity play a significant role in discovering and building a career in the arts. We also acknowledge that a wide range of professional backgrounds and experience can be a source of strength for any organization. If you are passionate about this job, we want to hear from you.

To apply, complete the Associate Producer Application Form by uploading your resume and a brief cover letter detailing your interest, relevant skills and experience, and availability. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the role is filled, with a priority deadline of November 16, 2026. Finalists for this position can expect to be part of 2-3 interviews with current staff and Board members.

Please contact jobs@waterwell.org with any questions.

Waterwell (www.waterwell.org) is an Obie Award winning non-profit production company creating theater, film and digital media that wrestles with complex civic questions, gathering people for cultural events that provoke, inspire, and build community. 

The company was co-founded by Arian Moayed, an Iranian-born Tony and Emmy nominated actor and director, who runs the company in close partnership with two-time Obie Award winning director Lee Sunday Evans and Managing Director Sarah Scafidi.

The company is known for its strong track record of partnering with individuals and organizations who are thought leaders on a wide range of critically important issues to create performance work that makes a robust contribution to policy-making, grassroots organizing and sparking substantive connection across real and perceived divides.

Partners include: The United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations, National Center for Youth Law, Documented - an independent newsroom, the New York Immigration Coalition, Dignity Not Detention Coalition and the American Immigration Council.

In 2025, the company was honored to receive an Obie Award from the American Theater Wing, one of the industry’s highest honors, for our dedication to “grappling with how language and performance explore society and the human condition.”

Waterwell's most recent production was The Ford/Hill Project, a critically acclaimed verbatim play about Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, created by Elizabeth Marvel + Lee Sunday Evans. It premiered at Woolly Mammoth and the Public Theater, before encore runs at Under the Radar Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, REDCAT, Long Wharf Theater, Middlebury + Williams Colleges. For the 2026 United Nations General Assembly, Waterwell was commissioned to create and produce an original short play about the Sustainable Development Goals. Additional productions include: world-premiere of Lameece Issaq’s A Good Day to Me Not to You at The Connelly Theater in partnership with Plate Spinner Productions, a commission from the influential Council on Foreign Relations to create a new site-specific project about Refugees & Resettlement in the United States. Waterwell also commissioned and produced Edafe Okporo’s autobiographical play about the six months he spent in immigration detention and put this poignant story in front of legislators in Albany and grassroots audiences around NYC with the Dignity Not Detention coalition. In 2019, Waterwell premiered The Courtroom, a verbatim re-enactment of one woman’s deportation proceedings. Called “theater as civic meditation” and named “Best Theater of 2019” by The New York Times, it was performed in active legal spaces, including the seat of the Second Circuit at the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse and then adapted into a feature-length film (www.thecourtroomfilm.com) that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Waterwell is committed to creating an inclusive community of mutual respect where anti-racist and anti-oppression principles guide our decision-making and the organization’s culture. We are currently evaluating how our stated intentions align with the outcomes created by our decisions and identifying actions that will make those goals a reality in the short-term and long-term. We believe that having a staff of artists and administrators that is racially equitable and represents a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences is essential to fulfilling our mission.

Equal employment opportunities are available to all. Applicants from populations underrepresented in the theater field are strongly encouraged to apply. All qualified applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national social or ethnic origin, religion or belief, sex, pregnancy, HIV status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression, age, physical, mental or sensory disability, veteran status, and family or parental status.