MIRIAM ANI
actor | director | teacher
STEEL MAGNOLIAS
by Robert Harling
Cinnabar Theater
Ranked as 1 of 5 BEST SHOWS of 2025 reviewed by the Petaluma-Argus Courier!
"Director Miriam Ani has brought together an outstanding ensemble cast, able to play every beat of humor without undermining the tragedy when it finally happens...
...well-told, believable, and emotionally satisfying...
...an almost perfect production..."
Developed a community partnership with Moxie Salon of Cotati to learn the ropes— errmm rollers!— from the Best Salon in Sonoma County!
Read a feature on Miriam & Steel Magnolias in Rehearsal.
Listen to Miriam & actor Sarah Dunnavant ("Truvy") talk about the work with Harry Duke on the "Theatre Thursday" segment of The Drive on Wine Country Radio 95.5:
THE CRUCIBLE
by Arthur Miller
Pacifica Spindrift Players
"Miriam Ani's presentation of ['The Crucible'] is a seat for our times at the thoughtful brink of a cliff...
...director Miriam Ani has... a real understanding of how to shake an audience up with a story that we think we know...
...deeply well done..."
— The Pacifica Tribune
Embracing Miller's play as a highly theatricalized reality, neither historically accurate nor a perfect metaphor for our times, favorite directorial embellishment was an original prologue exploring threads of racism & repression, and mining such historical details as the first slave song ever transcribed in English and the "Lord's Prayer" from the 1662 version of the Booke of Common Prayer (which, was commonly known, could not be recited in its entirety by a witch without mistake!)
Developed evocative original score with local composer David Decker (Neosonic Productions). Listen to the Intro to the Prologue:
THE HALLELUJAH GIRLS
by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope & Jamie Wooten
North Bay Stage Company
A rollicking, heartfelt comedy that embraces community, second chances, and the power of the theatrical Empty Space.
SALEM
a devised piece about the Salem Witch Trials from the "afflicted girls" point of view
Castro Valley Dramatic Arts Academy
"...under her guidance, every member of the ensemble was fully invested in the work and delivered surprisingly mature and nuanced performances. Then too, the creativity in the staging and design elements revealed Miriam's visionary directing abilities..."
— Darryl V. Jones, Professor Emeritus, CSUEB
Working with 10 middle school girls, I conceived this collage piece including scenes from Arthur Miller's The Crucible, intricate primary source material from the trials themselves and beyond, and imaginatively stylized explorations of historical events to unravel the terrible power that turned Salem village upside down in that frenzied winter of 1692.
LOVE'S LABOURS’ LOST
by William Shakespeare
San Francisco Shakespeare Festival Teen Shakespeare Camp
A tale of two very different Love's Labours’ Losts from two Upstart Crows Camps. Favorite directorial innovation included the intricate 4 couple scene imagined as a circle waltz in motion!
THE TROJAN HORSE
adapted from Virgil's Aeneid
A Berkeley Rep School of Theatre directing residency at Berkeley Arts Magnet
(I like to think the Ikea Trüjan Horss says it all.)
HAPPINESS IS
by Carlyn Miller
Goucher College Playworks Production
They were silent. They stared at the view, as if something might happen in one of those fields to relieve them of the intolerable burden of sitting silent, doing nothing, in company. We aren't free, each one of them felt separately, to feel or think separately, nor yet to fall asleep.
We're too close, but not close enough.
So they fidgeted.
— Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts
BURDEN DOWN
Workshop Reading
by Liz Gjelten
3GirlsTheatre Company
Workshopped this new play with the playwright dealing with mother/daughter relationships, past love, mental illness, trauma, and race, o my! Also required puppeteering with scripts in hand.
THE TIGRESS OF SAN DOMINGUE
Workshop Reading
by France-Luce Benson
ACTF Region VII Festival
Worked alongside the playwright on this full length-staged reading of her fascinating 9 character play, the 2nd in a 3 play cycle about the Haitian Revolution she is developing.