Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts

Intimacy Direction Seminar - Claire Warden

Thursday, September 24, 2020

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

The University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance is pleased to announce an upcoming online seminar with Drama Desk Award winner Claire Warden (Intimacy Director, Broadway) whose credits include “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” (Broadhurst Theatre), “Slave Play” (New York Theatre Workshop), “Daddy” (Vineyard/New Group), “Jagged Little Pill” (Broadhurst Theatre), “The Inheritence” (Ethel Barrymore Theatre), “Company” (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre), “West Side Story” (Broadway Theatre), “Miss Julie” and “Dance of Death” (Classic Stage Company) and “BLKS” (MCC Theatre), amongst others.

Ms. Warden consults for and intimacy coordinates for productions on televisions networks including HBO, Hulu, Amazon and Showtime as well as major motion pictures. She recently made history as the first intimacy director on a Broadway production, for “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” with Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon, and has since worked on numerous other Broadway shows.

She was recently named one of Variety Magazine’s “10 Broadway Players to Watch”

Ms. Warden is the first woman ever to be nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Fight Choreography (which she won), as intimacy and fight director of “Slave Play” at the New York Theatre Workshop. In the same season she was also nominated as intimacy and fight director for “Daddy” (Vineyard/New Group) with Alan Cummings. In the 2020 season, Claire was awarded a special Drama Desk Award for ‘her pioneering work as an intimacy choreographer… and her leadership in the rapidly emerging movement of intimacy direction.’

She trains faculty and students in acting training institutions across the country including Yale School of Drama and Yale College, Brown/Trinity Rep, the O’Neill Theatre Center, Stella Adler, Sarah Lawrence, UConn, Northeastern University and Muhlenberg College. She has also trained students at Cambridge University in the UK, and has presented at conferences across America.

She is part of the creative and the teaching teams of IDC, training the next generation of Intimacy Directors and Coordinators and offering education for the industry.