Currently the Head of Directing at the University of Washington School of Drama, Valerie Curtis-Newton also serves as the Founding Artistic Director for The Hansberry Project, a professional African American theatre lab. She has worked with professional theatres across the country including: The Guthrie Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Seattle Rep, Playmakers Repertory Company, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, New York Theatre Workshop, and Southern Repertory Theatre among others. She has been awarded: Seattle Times Most Influential People of the Last Decade; Theatre Puget Sound – Gregory Falls Award for Sustained Achievement; Seattle Stranger Genius Award in Performance and the Crosscut Courage Award for Culture.