"guts-on-the-table theater”
- New York Mag

Emma Rosa Went is an award-winning director who makes new and classic-text plays. Her work is heartfelt, intimate, character-driven, and sexy.

Emma collaborates most frequently with her wife, the playwright Else Went — their work together off-broadway has been critically acclaimed by The New Yorker,‍ New York Times, New York Mag, and other publications. ("the Wents are particular wizards when it comes to eliciting fully released, brazenly exhilarating work from actors" -NY Mag;) ("their collaboration has quickly become one of the most exciting theatrical partnerships in New York" -Theatermania.) Their plays include:

The world-premiere of Degenerates at Playwrights Horizons (NYT Critic’s Pick) now playing through Nov 8th (“a brave, ambitious, sad and sexy beast of a play” -Vulture;) and their joint debut, the world-premiere of Else’s 5-hour epic Initiative at the Public, which was listed as #5 of Vulture’s Best Plays of 2025, and received a Lucille Lortel Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble. Emma, Else, and the company were collectively awarded a Drama Desk Special Award for Initiative, citing “the richness of a shared language” and “the magic that can be found in devoting time to process.”

Emma has developed and presented work off-broadway & regionally with The Public, Playwrights Horizons, MTC, NYTW, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Mercury Store, Hudson Valley Shakespeare, The Tank, and many other venues. Emma has also directed about a dozen of Shakespeare's plays, recently including As You Like It, for the Public Theater's Mobile Unit. She has been co-directing Hamlet with Will Frears since 2021, at Mercury Store and Coffey St. Studio in Red Hook — more info coming soon.

From 2024-26, Emma was on staff as the inaugural Directing Fellow at the Public. She is a frequent lead-artist at Mercury Store, and an alum of the Drama League Directors Project, SDCF Observership Program, and OSF FAIR Program. She has taught at Marymount Manhattan College, and guest-lectured at NYU, Brooklyn College, Freeman Studio, and (her alma mater) Sarah Lawrence College.

Emma is a Member of SDC, and she is represented by WME. She lives in Brooklyn, with Else and their cat Fiona. // Substack.