Emma Rosa Went is a Brooklyn-based director who makes new and classic-text plays. Her work is heartfelt, intimate, collaborative, and sexy. She is currently on staff at The Public Theater as the inaugural Directing Fellow, where she will premiere Else Went’s play INITIATIVE in the fall of 2025.

In New York, Emma has also developed work with MTC, Ars Nova, NYTW, Red Bull & TFANA, Playwrights Realm, The Tank, The Brick, and many other venues. Regional work includes Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (Romeo and Juliet, Tour ‘23;) Opera House Arts (Much Ado About Nothing;) Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Rep (An Oxford Man;) Scranton Shakespeare Festival, and others. Recent projects include the Judith Champion Series presentation of Else’s play Degenerates at The Public, a pop-up production of Twelfth Night in a Brooklyn loft, and workshop of Else’s play I Am the Most Beautiful Bird with BTB at Playwrights Horizons.

Emma is a frequent lead-artist at Mercury Store, and is a recipient of the Drama League Classical Directing Fellowship, ‘Tent Pole Commission’ from HVSF, & residencies with Drama League, Barn Arts, and Public Shakespeare Initiative. She was a 2023 Finalist for the SDCF Barbara Whitman Award. Emma is currently teaching Shakespeare at Marymount Manhattan College. Emma went to Sarah Lawrence. She is a member of SDC.