Mac Gay

Mac Gay Anderson-Cooper is a queer, feminist, antiracist enby director, playwright, producer and filmmaker hailing from Lexington, Kentucky, trained in Chicago and now based in New York City.

They earned their BA in theatre from Northwestern University with focuses in directing and playwriting. Mac writes and directs stories that launch queerness (of gender and of society’s rigidities) into the spotlight using spectacle, absurdism, physical comedy and magical realism. With roots in the South and artistry blooming in these United States, they do not shy away from challenging themes of our time including homophobia, class and racism, in fact believing that theatre is the tool which teaches people most efficiently and effectively how (and why) to see their world anew. As a queer theatre practitioner, Mac is committed to igniting work and creating rooms at the intersection of social justice, creativity and joy. They are drawn to queer-forward, lady-forward plays and adaptations which challenge and change us as artists and audiences, and ultimately draw us more together as humans. There is so much to question and so much to explore, if we are only daring enough to do so, and theatre lighting makes everything radically possible. Favorite directing credits include Sensitive Guys by MJ Kaufman, Pomegranate Season by Victoria Cano and an all-femme production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. Recently, they co-directed the world premiere of an immersive, theatrical journalism experience in Berlin, Germany highlighting the Uyghur diaspora called Everybody Is Gone.

Mac is an experienced director of new work, leading developmental workshops and readings in the States and abroad for over 10 years. They got their start in directing new work as a student director for the Agnes Nixon Playwriting Festival and fell in love with the collaborative process as well as the constant state of creation that is developing new plays. They worked in the literary department at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, assisting multiple directors during the New Stages festival and supporting the Playwrights Unit with their monthly workshops. Recently, Mac has directed plays about a girl dropping her life in NYC to do the Colorado Ironman (70.3 by Sam Mueller, Goodman Theatre), women as renewable resources (Girls on Ice by Abigail Brooke, The Tank), and femme-powered cannibalistic consumerism (Serve Yourself by Abigail Brooke, Abbott Hall). 

As an extension of their passion for leading new work processes, Mac is also a playwright. When writing plays, Mac likes onions, instruments, and blood on the page whenever possible and sometimes all at once. They believe absurdism and comedy can get at the heart of anything difficult, that theatre is dead if written without spectacle and that all four elements should always find their way onstage. Their work has been produced in Chicago and London, and they are a proud alumnx of the Jackalope Playwrights Lab.