Jennifer Chang
Associate Professor
Jennifer Chang is a multihyphenate artist who won the LADCC Award in Direction for the Los Angeles premiere of Vietgone by Qui Nguyen. Select directing credits include the world premiere of What Became of Us by Shayan Lotfi at The Atlantic Theatre Company, the regional premiere of Putlizer-winning Primary Trust by Eboni Booth at Barrington Stage Company, The Far Country by Lloyd Suh at Berkeley Rep, King of The Yees by Lauren Yee at Signature Theatre DC (Helen Hayes Award Nom best production) The Heart Sellers by Lloyd Suh at Milwaukee Rep (World Premiere), American Fast by Kareem Fahmy at City Theatre; Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at Antaeus Theatre Company, On Gold Mountain by Nathan Wang and Lisa See with LA Opera at The Huntington, The Great Leap by Lauren Yee at The Round House Theatre; and Undo the Sea by Inda Craig-Galván with Primary Stages. New play/new musical development collaborations include those at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Pasadena Playhouse, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Geffen Playhouse, New Harmony Project, Center Theatre Group, Sông Collective, Black and Latino Playwrights’ Conference, Theatre Mu, Chance Theater, Boston Court, Ashland New Plays Festival, PlayOn!, East West Players, and Artists at Play, among others. She is a founding member of the award-winning Chalk Repertory Theatre where she has served as Artistic Producing Director. Her play The Devil Is a Lie directed by Kyle Haden, premiered at Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh. She received the Beatrice Terry Residency at The Drama League in New York City for her play Matter and was a member of The 23-24 Geffen Writers Room.
Select acting credits: Theatre at La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep, National Asian American Theatre Company, East West Players, Mixed Blood Theatre; Film and TV: Mom, 2 ½ Men, Parenthood, NCIS: LA, Medium, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Medium, Numb3rs Days of Our Lives, In the Dark, numerous national commercials and more workshops and readings than she can count.
She is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographer’s Society (SDC), Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and Actor’s Equity Association (AEA). She was a 2021 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) Fichandler Award finalist and received an Asian Pacific American Friends of the Theater (APAFT) Outstanding Director award in 2019.
Chang received her BFA in drama and psychology from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (ETW and Playwrights Horizons) and her MFA in acting from UCSD/ La Jolla Playhouse. She was a 2022 Classical Directing Fellow at the Old Globe and is an alum of Director’s Lab West and the Drama League (New York Fellowship). She was previously acting faculty at UCSD, teaching MFA and BA acting serving as Head of Undergraduate Acting and has been a visiting professor at Pomona College.
