On 17 August 2026, TORCHES continues with a conversation with award winning theater maker Melanie Joseph. She founded and led the Foundry Theatre for 25 years.
Melanie Joseph is a dramaturg, community organizer, creative producer, and the founder of The Foundry Theatre. For twenty-five years The Foundry was a refuge for collaborations between artists in every discipline, activists, and scholars—working together at the edge of what’s possible in performance, public discourse, and social justice communities. The Foundry’s commissioned works toured nationally and internationally, garnered all kinds of nominations and awards, and troubled the conventions of the American Theatre. Melanie herself has been honored with the Doris Duke Artist Prize, two Ross Wetzsteon Obie Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award for Artistic Producing, The Skirball Kennis Artist Prize and nine Drama Desk Award Nominations for “Unique Theatrical Experience” (that never won. Ever ;=). All of the above history is documented, interrogated, and re-imagined in A Moment on the Clock of the World—a book that launches both The Foundry’s and Melanie’s creative inquiry into the future tense; while the company’s visual histories can be explored in its website. Melanie is currently an independent artist and producer whose work continues to explore questions of theatre and its place in these complex times.
