About Whitney White (director)
Whitney White is an Obie and Lily Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated director, actor and musician, celebrated for her bold, innovative storytelling across both Broadway and off-Broadway. She recently received the Drama League’s 2025 Founders Award for Excellence in Directing. She’s also just opened Saturday Church, a new musical featuring songs by Sia and Honey Dijon at New York Theatre Workshop.
Whitney White sits squarely at the centre of the cultural zeitgeist, reshaping the way contemporary audiences engage with Shakespeare and the wider canon. Her work blends theatrical innovation with a pop-culture sensibility. It’s music-driven, emotionally razor-sharp, and defiantly modern – making her one of the most exciting storytellers working today.
By reframing Shakespeare through a distinctly female lens, she interrogates ambition, desire and power in ways that resonate deeply with 21st-century audiences. Whitney creates work that feels both intimate and epic, drawing on personal and collective experience to craft theatrical events that speak directly to the moment. Her ability to merge genres, tap into shared cultural rhythms and bring new generations into the room positions her as the theatre world’s equivalent of a global pop superstar. She is an artist shaping, not just productions, but the cultural conversation itself.
Whitney’s directing credits on Broadway include The Last Five Years and Jaja’s African Hair Braiding; off-Broadway credits include Liberation, Walden, Jordan’s, Soft, On Sugarland, What to Send Up When It Goes Down, Our Dear Druglord, and For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad. She also created Macbeth In Stride at BAM, writing the book, music and lyrics. Additional directing work includes The Secret Life of Bees, By The Queen, The Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington, A Human Being of a Sort, An Iliad, The Amen Corner, Othello, Canyon, and Jump.
On screen, Whitney has appeared in Ocean’s Eight, Single Drunk Female, Louie, and The Playboy Club, and she contributed as a writer to Boots Riley’s acclaimed series I’m A Virgo for Prime Video.
About All Is But Fantasy
Shakespeare’s most iconic characters take the mic, and centre stage, like never before.
Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Emilia, and Richard III step into the spotlight, challenging the stories that shaped them, in this high-voltage fusion of rock, pop, soul, and gospel, created by award-winning artist, writer, and composer Whitney White.
With a live band and a stellar ensemble, this is Shakespeare turned all the way up.
Enjoy these two performances back-to-back on a single day, across two separate days (in any order), or simply as standalone plays for an equally breathtaking experience.
This lively production experience blends theatre and rehearsal room in a truly boundary-breaking way. Across two parts, Whitney revisits four iconic characters including Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Emilia and Richard III, through an energetic musical lens, creating a fresh, accessible, and utterly unique way to encounter Shakespeare.
Need to know: All is But Fantasy runs at the Royal Shakespeare Company until 21 February 2026 | Visit Afridiziak Theatre News for our full theatre listings
