AYA OGAWA.
award-winning writer, director and performer.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY.
AYA OGAWA (they/them) is an award-winning Tokyo-born, Brooklyn-based creator and translator of theater. They have devised, written and directed many plays including oph3lia (HERE), Journey to the Ocean (Foundry Theatre) and Ludic Proxy (The Play Company). They received an Obie Award for The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater) which subsequently ran at Woolly Mammoth Theatre and toured to Walker Art Center, REDCAT, Wexner Center for the Arts, On the Boards and the New National Theatre, Tokyo. They directed Haruna Lee’s Obie Award-winning Suicide Forest as well as Maiko Kikuchi and Spencer Lott’s 9000 Paper Balloons. Doris Duke Artist Award (2025); Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting (2023); Cullman Award for Extraordinary Creativity, Lincoln Center Theater (2022-23); Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2023); The Playwrights’ Center’s McKnight Foundation National Residency & Commission (2023-24); President’s Award in Performing Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2015); MacDowell Fellow; Resident playwright, New Dramatists.
ARTIST INTERVIEW.
Interview released on March 2.
And I decided if I was going to be a starving artist anyway, I at least wanted to make the art I wanted to make, and have it be meaningful to me... But all roads that I’ve taken have led me to this point, and I don’t have any regrets about any of it.” | Artist Website.
GALLERY.
Discover photos and videos from Aya's work.
CREDITS: OPH3LIA, Aya Ogawa, HERE, 2008, Ikuko Ikari and ensemble, photo: Carl Skutsch; Headshot by Darren Cox; OPH3LIA, Aya Ogawa, HERE, HERE, 2008, Eunjee Lee, Jy Murphy and ensemble, photo: Carl Skutsch; OPH3LIA, written & directed by Aya Ogawa, HERE, HERE, 2008, featuring Laura Butler, Drae Campbell, Dawn Eshelman, Connie Hall, Ikuko Ikari, Hana Kalinski, Eunjee Lee, Mark Lindberg, Alanna Medlock, Jy Murphy, Jorge Rubio, Magin Schantz, Maureen Sebastian; Ludic Proxy, Aya Ogawa, The Play Company, WalkerSpace, 2015, Saori Tsukada and Yuki Kawahisa, photo: Carol Rosegg; SUICIDE FOREST, written by Haruna Lee and directed by Aya Ogawa, Ma-Yi Theater Company, ART/NY Mezzanine Theatre, 2020, Eddy Toru Ohno and Keizo Kaji, photo: Richard Termine; THE NOSEBLEED, written & directed by Aya Ogawa, Hanaji LLC, REDCAT, 2024, Drae Campbell, Saori Tsukada, Kaili Y. Turner, Ashil Lee, photo: Angel Origgi; Ludic Proxy, Aya Ogawa, The Play Company, WalkerSpace, 2015, Chris Henry and Ayesha Jordan, photo: Carol Rosegg; 9000 PAPER BALLOONS, created by Maiko Kikuchi and Spencer Lott, dramaturg and directed by Aya Ogawa, Japan Society, Japan Society, 2021, Nick Lehane and Maiko Kikuchi, photo: Maria Baranova.