Biography
Marya Sea Kaminski is an award-winning theater artist, writer, and producer who combines creative practice and innovative leadership to build spaces of curiosity, deep connection, and joyful collaboration across disciplines and communities. As a director, she is known for large-scale musicals and inventive classic plays, including her all-femme Tempest starring Tamara Tunie and, most recently, her Hobbit reimagined as a theatrical D&D tabletop game with life-sized puppets by Matt Acheson. She believes fresh interpretations of familiar stories like these can offer a unique invitation for collective imagination across generations and backgrounds. As a performer, Marya has played titular roles in My Name Is Rachel Corrie (Seattle Rep), Electra (Seattle Shakespeare), and Hedda Gabler: Blahblahblahbang! (On the Boards), as well as Lena in Wes Hurley’s SXSW-select feature film Potato Dreams of America. She has performed her original solo works at PS 122, H.E.R.E., Bumbershoot, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
From 2018 to 2025, Marya served as Artistic Director of Pittsburgh Public Theater where her hallmark initiatives included wildly imaginative adaptations of classics; an unprecedented investment in new work through robust resident artist and commissioning programs; and a deep commitment to expanding access to the field through workforce development initiatives, innovative community collaborations, and digital programming. During her tenure, the Public increased diverse representation onstage across age, gender, and race by more than 300 percent, while welcoming over 1000 new households to the theater’s subscriber community, and reaching nearly 11,000 viewers through her digital play-reading series PlayTime.
Previously, as Associate Artistic director at Seattle Repertory Theatre and in collaboration with New York’s Public Theater, she founded Public Works Seattle, a transformative initiative inviting new communities into the theater and onto the stage through long-term partnerships and collaboration. She went on to found Public Works Pittsburgh in 2025 with an 80-person pageant production of Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub’s musical adaptation of Twelfth Night in collaboration with nine community-partner organizations from across Western Pennsylvania.
Marya is a founding co-artistic director of Washington Ensemble Theatre, a ground-breaking performance ensemble established in 2004. At WET, she produced or directed regional premieres by Adam Rapp, KJ Sanchez, and Jordan Harrison. Over her career, she has commissioned and developed dozens of new works, including Mark Clayton Southers’ Pulitzer-nominated The Coffin Maker, Martyna Majok’s Woman at the Well, and Billy Strayhorn: Something to Live For by Rob Zellers and Kent Gash.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and theater at the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Washington. Marya has also taught at Hollins University, the University of Washington, and Cornish College of the Arts, where she earned the Drama Department’s Award for Teaching Excellence in her first year of teaching.
She has received a Genius Award from The Stranger, recognition as Artist of the Year by Seattle Magazine, and multiple Footlight, Gregory, and BroadwayWorld awards. As a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Actors’ Equity Association, and the Society of Authors and Dramatic Composers, Marya is committed to creating inclusive, impactful theatrical experiences that inspire joy, connection, and imagination for artists and audiences alike.
