Staff
Nan Barnett (Executive Director) is a new play advocate, a developer of theatre artists, and a producer of the work they create. She sat on the Executive Committee of National New Play Network for more than six years during which several of its now nationally acclaimed programs, such as the Continued Life of New Play Fund, playwright residencies and MFA showcase were developed and piloted, and served as President of the organization from 2006 to 2009. She was a founding company member and the long-time Managing Director of the nationally acclaimed regional theatre Florida Stage, which produced exclusively new and developing work. During her twenty-four year tenure she was a part of the team that oversaw the development and production of plays and musicals for both emerging and seasoned playwrights such as Israel Horovitz, Steven Dietz, Jeffrey Hatcher, Christopher McGovern, Deborah Zoe Laufer, William Mastrosimone and Nilo Cruz. More than 150 subsequent productions across the United States, Canada and Europe have been generated by Florida Stage premieres. She comes to NNPN from member theatre Actor’s Express, where she served as the Executive Director of the Atlanta company’s twenty fifth anniversary season. A graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts Professional Actor Training Program, she is the winner of the Theatre League of South Florida’s Remy Award for service to the theatrical community, the 2012 Fallon Award for excellence in the professional theatre from the Florida Professional Theatre Association, and is a two-time winner of South Florida’s Carbonell Award as an actress.
Jojo Ruf (General Manager) joined the National New Play Network in January of 2010.
Jojo works as a Teaching Artist for Ford’s Theatre, and has worked with Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center, Theater J, the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, Welders Theatre, and Georgetown University as a freelance producer and director. She has directed the world premiere of Tree House (Welders Theatre), the DC premiere of The Pull of Negative Gravity (Welders Theatre) and Translations (Georgetown University) and assistant directed the world premiere of Wisconsin Death Trip (GU), a new adaptation of Six Characters in Search of an Author (GU), and the DC premiere of In Darfur (Theater J). In 2010 Jojo assistant directed and co-adapted In Search of Duende: The Ballad of Federico Garcia Lorca as part of the UNESCO/ITI World Festival of Theater Schools in Peru, and represented Georgetown as the lone US delegation among representatives from dozens of the world's leading theater academies.
Most recently, Jojo served as the Coordinating Producer for Georgetown University’s Convening on Global Performance, Civic Imagination, and Cultural Diplomacy and as the Coordinator for Theater J’s Spinozium and other Beyond the Stage events for New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza. In 2010 she was the Coordinating Producer for the Tennessee Williams Centennial Festival, presented by Georgetown University and Arena Stage. She also produced Will the Circle be Unbroken: Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith, a Georgetown University/Arena Stage Collaboration. She graduated from Georgetown University with a dual degree in English and Theater and Performance Studies.