about
(it's pronounced
bree-deen)
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Brídín Clements Cotton is an artist, educator, and project manager; and co-author of the book Theatre Work: Reimagining the Labor of Theatrical Production (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2024). Beginning in August 2025, Brídín will be based in Kalamazoo, Michigan (U.S.A).
Brídín is currently in her final semester as Arts Instructor of Stage and Project Management at NYU Abu Dhabi. Most recently as a theatremaker, Brídín stage managed the developmental workshop production of Wole Soyinka’s new play, Canticles for a Pyre Foretold. Her approach to facilitating collaboration is driven by belief in the potential for theatre as a space for human connection and interest in how gatherings can create collective meaning.
Before moving to Abu Dhabi, Brídín served as an administrator and adjunct faculty member at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she worked with the Undergraduate Department of Drama and the Undergraduate Film & Television Department. At Tisch Drama, Brídín taught introductory stage management, led workshops in management theory and building effective teams, and developed a course titled From Concept to Curtain Call: Producing Work in New York.
Other past positions include Special Assistant to the Artistic Director and Executive Director at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, Regional Field Director on a U.S. Congressional Campaign, Business Manager for NYC’s premier hip-hop improv team North Coast, Operations Manager at technical production management firm Tinc Productions, four seasons on the production management and general management teams for the New York Musical Festival, and four seasons on the producing team for the contemporary performance festival American Realness.
In her own artistry, Brídín is a multidisciplinary creator with an interest in communications, interactivity, holistic wellbeing, and the relationship between the natural and unnatural. Taking various shapes and forms, Brídín’s work uses color, pattern, and text, various artistic mediums, and found objects to explore these themes.
Brídín holds a Masters in Public Administration with a focus on Public & Nonprofit Management & Policy from NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a BFA in Theatre with a focus on Stage Management and Producing. She has published writing about the barriers created by unpaid internship culture in arts administration and about gender equity in theatrical design.
teaching
Beginning in Fall 2025, I will be based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I am eager to bring my arts management teaching to the Southwest Michigan region, and will continue to offer virtual workshops as well.
Here are some topics in which I offer workshops >>
I am also an experienced mentor, project manager, and consultant for creative projects.
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Stage Management
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Self Start Producing
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Facilitating Communications
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Building Effective Teams
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Reimagining the theatrical production workplace with a human-centered lens
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HR in production labor
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Tools for sustainable careers in production
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Creating safe workplaces for production
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Equitable hiring practices for theatre
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Management theory
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Creative Project Management
writing
In Theatre Work, Cotton and Robin investigate the question of artmaking, specifically theatrical production, as work. When the art is the work, how do employers navigate the balance between creative freedom and consistent personnel processes that promote accessibility, equity, and sustainability? Do theatrical production operations value the worker?
Theatre Work opens a door into both the history and current realities of life and work in professional theatrical production in the United States. It presents a snapshot of theatrical production workers in the 2020s, specifically questioning the lack of diverse representation in the theatrical production field today and how the field has promoted systemic exclusion.
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To address the gender inequity in theatrical design and more broadly across the performing arts industry, I recommend that producing entities partner with labor organizations to implement transparent and equitable hiring practices, adjust the production schedule, and develop support systems for working families.
If an organization is committed to building a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable industry, the resources are allotted to their internship programs should be a demonstration of these values.
This literature review synthesizes the existing literature on how performing arts programs within higher education institutions can practice inclusivity for disabled students. It considers two primary areas of research: disability in theatre and disability in higher education.
A few questions to consider; for those of us who have never needed to make a video and are now being asked to shift all of our events from live to digital.
What theaters and productions are doing to making their shows available to people with sensory, social and learning disabilities, beginning long before the audience arrives at the theater.
So you want to do a show? Here are a few tips to creating your show's "business plan" and setting yourself on the path to getting it produced.