Diana Wyenn is a Los Angeles-born and -based director, choreographer, creative producer and community builder. Working across theater, opera, contemporary music, dance, and film, her interdisciplinary practice explores themes of trauma and healing, equity and disability justice, environmental responsibility, and civic engagement through collaborative forms. 

 

Known for developing new work and transforming personal experience into incisive, socially conscious art, Wyenn’s professional highlights include the World Health Organization presenting her award-winning autobiographical solo performance Blood/Sugar; directing the premieres of Theodosia Roussos’ Polymnia and Daniel Kessner and Lionelle Hamanaka’s The Camp; devising and touring Kristina Wong for Public Office; choreographing the U.S. premiere of Andrew Norman’s A Trip to the Moon at Walt Disney Concert Hall; and creative directing Interlochen Arts Academy's Imagine US featuring more than 150 student artists performing alongside cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

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Her directing and choreographic work has been presented by leading organizations in the U.S. and abroad, including Center Theatre Group, LA Phil, LA Opera, Roundabout Theatre Company, Disney, Beth Morrison Projects, National Sawdust, Detroit Opera, MOCA, LACMA, Malmö Opera, Interlochen Arts Academy, New West Symphony, BroadStage, IAMA Theatre Company, Boston Court Pasadena, Synchromy, UCLA, CalTech, ASU Gammage, Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, and Yale’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas. She is a finalist for the 2026 SDCF Barbara Whitman Award, and her work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Arts and Disability Center, Center for Cultural Innovation, the California Arts Council, among others. 

 

This season, Wyenn directs and dramaturgs the world premiere of UCLA MFA Playwright Natalie Lambert’s Bad Breath: the stink inside me and the West Coast premiere of composer/performer Jodie Landau’s Performance of Self, produced by Beth Morrison Projects and presented at REDCAT. She also serves as the Creative Director for Imagine U.S., a national project that features more than 150 students from Interlochen Arts Academy on tour with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia orchestra, and Detroit symphony to foreground a youth perspective on America250. Collaborators include composers Reena Esmail and Wynton Marsalis, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua McClendon, and conductor Cristian Măcelaru. 

 

In 2017, Wyenn co-founded Plain Wood Productions with her spouse, Laban Pheidias. With Plain Wood Productions, she has directed and produced the premieres of new operas, including Roussos’ Polymnia and Lionelle Hamanaka and Daniel Kessner’s The Camp, and produced the international tour of Cassil’s Human Measure, as well as music videos garnering millions of views for artists including Satyricon and American Idol’s Alejandro Aranda. Her additional film credits include choreographing Tova Katz’s Spit Me Out and performing in Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. 

 

A leading arts administrator and presenter, Wyenn has held senior producing and leadership roles at the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and was the founding Artistic Director and Curator of TIOH Arts & Culture. Since 2023, she has served as Co–Artistic Director of Los Angeles’ Ammunition Theatre Company. 

 

Committed to education and mentorship, she is a frequent guest lecturer and has taught at UCLA, Pomona College, and Cal Poly Pomona. Since 2019, she has hosted Women+ Directors Gatherings at her home and, for nearly a decade, she was a lead organizer of Director's Lab West, providing mid-career training and networking for over 300 professional stage directors and choreographers. She currently serves on the CalRx Insulin Patient Advisory Council.

 

Wyenn received her BFA with Honors from New York University, receiving the Founder’s Day Award. 

 

Married to professional skateboarder Laban, the couple is always looking for a great vegan restaurant to try and currently developing a new opera/musical/film hybrid project, Zombie Opera: The Musical. 

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