Brazilian theater director Marina Montesanti has built a prominent and steadily rising career in New York’s theater industry, working across Broadway, Off Broadway, and immersive performance.
After more than a decade living in the United States, she has become one of the few Latina women operating within the American commercial theater system, a position earned through an increasingly visible professional presence.
Montesanti trained in New York, receiving an MFA in Directing from Columbia University, one of the most respected directing programs in the world, and a BFA from The New School for Drama.
Early in her career, she was selected at the age of 21 to participate in a workshop with legendary director Peter Brook at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. At 25, she returned to the academic sphere as a guest instructor in the Musical Theater BFA program at CAP21, one of New York’s established actor training institutions.
Her career also extends into producing. Working with Iconic Vizion Productions, Montesanti was part of the Broadway producing team of Fat Ham, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which earned her a Tony Award nomination.
She was also a co-producer of A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical and served as a producer for an immersive staging of Into the Woods, which brought Broadway-level artistry into a non-traditional performance environment.
As a director, Montesanti works across classic and contemporary repertoires. She directed The Visit, becoming the first person granted the rights to restage the Kander and Ebb musical since its original Broadway production.
Her upcoming work includes In the Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too, which will premiere in New York in 2027, as well as a new musical adaptation of Oliver Twist, reimagined through the sonic and cultural lens of the 1970s and 1980s.
She also serves as Associate Director to Tony Award winning director Rachel Chavkin on Eugene Onegin: A Bluegrass Musical by Sarah Gancher, currently moving through its development process toward a workshop production at Theater Squared.
Montesanti describes New York as both demanding and transformative. Reflecting on her career, she says:
“New York asks a lot of you, but it also opens doors that really change the direction of a career. I have always been a theater nerd. Working, studying, and repeating until I get better is what drives me.
“I was fortunate to meet people here whom I admired and who welcomed me once they knew my work. My training expanded my creative values and shaped the direction of what I do. Today I am part of processes that are taking musical theater into new territory.
“Being inside those rooms at such a high level, with real space for my voice, is an enormous privilege. I am also fortunate to collaborate with playwrights of my generation. They are restless artists whose work reaches audiences with real strength.”
Her professional path includes collaborations with institutions such as Roundabout Theater Company, BAM, Gibney Dance, Signature Theater, and The Metropolitan Opera, reflecting a range that moves fluidly between commercial and nonprofit stages.
Montesanti’s trajectory is defined not by sudden breakthrough, but by accumulated training, artistic rigor, and sustained collaboration within one of the most competitive theater ecosystems in the world. Her work often engages themes of belonging and cultural navigation, echoing her experience as a Brazilian artist building an international career.
Her presence in the American theater landscape reflects a rare combination of academic foundation, institutional trust, and long term artistic commitment, establishing her as a distinguished Brazilian director whose contributions continue to strengthen the cultural and artistic life of the United States.
