Watt, who serves as associate artistic director at Rec Room Arts, has become the go-to director for cool, alternatively staged new plays, including Dance Nation, The Wolves, The Oldest Boy, What the Constitution Means to Me, and Heroes of the Fourth Turning. Thinking through how to shape the space to serve a play with a selected audience, Watt is precisely tuned into the style each show needs.

“These exceptional directors are going to change the face of the American theatre, of that I’ve no doubt,” says the Drama League's executive artistic director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks.”

Ultimately, Watt is an actor’s director. It's abundantly clear that her cast trusts her, and in turn, she steers that trust into the best performances we’ve seen from these talents. So rich is her talent that we couldn’t pick just one of her efforts to award this year. Double dynamite direction isn’t just great alliteration here; it’s a well-deserved tip of the hat to Watt this season.

Directed with a strong hand by Sophia Watt, Constitution, like its age-old namesake, lives and breathes.

“Sophia Watt directing at the top of her game”

“Director Sophia Watt navigates the emotion of Ruhl’s play with an almost choreographic eye. Watt’s approach is sophisticated and carefully restrained when necessary, as well as efficient. Watt also shows a way with the actors, who all shine in their performances.”

A final nod must go to director Sophia Watt for the perfect harmony she creates from a cast that we’ve neither seen together on a stage before nor imagined previously. We have Houston powerhouse talent, up and coming exciting performers and actors we adore and wish we saw more of. Under Watt’s assured hand, this cast has both the energy of a first time outing and the ease of regular colleagues.

The result is pure magic.