Founded in 2002 by Arian Moayed and Tom Ridgely, Waterwell began as an ensemble of devisers who created original work and shifted roles for each project.
Waterwell’s work has been called “Brilliant, original and inspired”, by The New York Times, and TheaterMania wrote that “Waterwell has artfully staked a claim on our collective conscience”.
The company's first production, Lost in Yemen, or The Bizarre Bazaar, launched the combination of artistic innovation, contagious entertainment and big-hearted tackling of social questions that the company would become known for.
Over the next few years, Waterwell created many productions that featured the original ensemble, Hanna Cheek, Kevin Townley, Rodney Gardiner, Lauren Cregor, and Nicole Parker, and deepened the company’s dynamic artistry: Fuentovejuna, Stuck, Chill & Serve, Sweetness & Light, The Persians: a comedy about war with five songs, Marco Millions (based on lies), The Last Year in the Life of Martin Luther King Jr., #9, and The Wizard of Wall Street.
In 2010, Waterwell began its partnership with a specialized NYC Public School called the Professional Performing Arts School. Since then, the company has steadily built a world-class conservatory-style Drama training program for students, grades 6-12, who come to the school from all five boroughs. In the spring of 2012, the company launched the New Works Lab commissioning program, hiring professional playwrights to create original works specifically for each graduating class of seniors. Waterwell’s commitment to tuition-free, civically-engaged arts education has continued to grow in the years since.
Also in 2012, the company’s acclaimed production of Goodbar was presented at the Under the Radar Festival after playing weekly performances at Ideal Glass to sold out crowds for the prior 6 months.
In 2017, Tom led the creation of Blueprint Specials, a new production based on short WWII-era musicals that the military commissioned from Private Frank Loesser. It was performed by a 60+ person cast composed of both military veterans and Broadway performers and played on the hangar deck of the Intrepid Air + Space Museum. Later that same year, Tom directed a dual-language Hamlet performed in English and Farsi and set in Iran in 1917 during a major turning point in the country’s relationship to the West, with Arian playing the title role.
In 2018, Waterwell began a new chapter when the founders decided to pass the baton to a new generation. The leadership of the company is now shared by two-time Obie Award-winning director Lee Sunday Evans as Artistic Director, Adam J. Frank as Managing Director, and Heather Lanza as Director of Education. Arian stepped into the role of Waterwell’s Board Chair, and Tom was appointed the Producing Artistic Director of St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.
In 2019, Waterwell premiered The Courtroom, a verbatim re-enactment of one woman’s deportation proceedings performed in active legal spaces around New York City, including the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse. The production was named “theater as civic meditation” and “Best Theater of 2019” by The New York Times. In the same year, the company created Fleet Week Follies, a festival bringing military and civilian communities together for a day of celebration and entertainment.
In the following years, Waterwell has continued to work on projects made alongside partners in the immigration legal and journalism fields. The Flores Exhibits, a series of short videos in which artists, lawyers, and community leaders read the legal testimonies of children held in facilities at the U.S/Mexico border in June 2019, has been screened in partnership with education and advocacy organizations around the country. Sé Lo Que Es Pandemia / I Know What Pandemic Means, which features interviews with undocumented workers in Queens, NY about their experiences during the pandemic, is a short documentary by Frisly Soberanis, a filmmaker and video artist from Queens via Guatemala, and was co-produced by Waterwell and Documented, a non-profit news site devoted solely to covering New York City’s immigrants and the policies that affect their lives.
