Mariana Newhard is a Filipina-American creator/writer/performer specializing in hybrid/devised new work. She has been a member of the Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group (DTF WAW) since 2017. This past November she developed the latest draft for her hybrid opera, Queen of the Nile at HERE Arts Center. She was a writer in residence this past June at the North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL)  in the Catskills. In September 2021 she was an artist in residence at Rogers Art Loft in Las Vegas, where she developed Queen of the Nile, culminating in a workshop performance at Rogers Studio Gallery. Queen of the Nile also received two workshops with HERE Arts Center in New York: in person July 20221 in their Dorothy B. Williams Theater, and digitally summer 2020 as part of the livestream series #STILLHERE.  It was first presented in 2019 as part of DTF WAW’s Sanctuary event.  Her first production, Assembled Identity (a co-creation with Kristin Marting and Purva Bedi) premiered at HERE Arts Center in Spring 2018, and received developmental support from DTF WAW, Drop Forge and Tool, NACL’s Deep Space Performance Resident Program, and the 2017 Artist Residency Program of The Drama League of New York. The project also received support from the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Disha Theatre, Mental Insight Foundation and Puffin Foundation. 

Mariana premiered her shorts BIg Leap, Alone and Perfect in 50 Ways at the Capital Fringe in D.C. in July 2018.  Other plays include Andromache at the Edge of the World, Zenith, Otherworld (all in development with DTF WAW) and Da Food is Da Food, developed with Packawallop Productions.