Andrew Watring (Andrew) is a Black Trans object-theatre-creator, director, award-winning playwright, producer, performer, and Anarkata-in-training from sweet home Huntsville, Alabama. Andrew is the Associate Artistic Director at People's Light. Andrew lives in Philadelphia with Andrew's partner.

Andrew's career has been dedicated to the creation and continued cultivation of "Shakespeare is a White Supremacist," a theatrical ritual grounded in analyzing and working to reverse Shakespeare’s colonizing effect on the American theatre; most recently staged with Main Street Players (Miami-Dade, FL). Andrew's most recent directing credits include: Draw The Circle by Mashuq Mushtaq at Hedgerow Theatre, Twelfth Night O Lo Que Quieras by Tanaquil Márquez and Liz Filios at Delaware Shakespeare, the book of lucy by Ngozi Anyanwu at The Pell Chaffee Performing Arts Center, Penguin Sex with Mr. Morgan by Dhari Noel at Ars Nova. Andrew was a Resident-Artist for the Yale Dramatic Association; a member of the Directors Lab North; graduate of the Theatre Lab Life Stories Institute; an Honored Playwright at the New South Young Playwright’s Festival. Andrew founded and served as the Artistic Director of the Fractal Theatre Collective, an anti-capitalist arts organization that embraced community-led, direct action as an integral element of theatrical design. Andrew holds a BA in Theatre from American University, and an MFA from Brown University / Trinity Repertory Company.

As an artist, Andrew has always believed in magic and considers theatre to be the only real magic left in the world. All magic is word magic—nommo—and word magic is the essence of theatre. Creating in all forms is inexorably tied to ritual. What is the spell of the play? What is the invocation of the pre-show? What is the incantation of the dialogue? 

Andrew approaches Andrew’s work in three key ways.

All theatre should be local. The model of the Free Southern Theatre comes closest to Andrew’s conceptualization of what any kind of “theatre” should be. The FST put the needs of the community first by centering practices that supported local artists and facilitated cooperation with poor, Southern, Black peoples.

All theatre should be personal. As stated by the Cheap Art Manifesto of the Bread and Puppet Theatre Company, a theatre is not a business; therefore, theatre should not seek to imitate the structure and practices of racist capitalism.

All theatre should be total. Theatre should begin before an audience enters the theatrical space. Theatre begins when you pretend a homeless person doesn’t exist. Theatre begins when you keep silent as a Black person is being tailed in the mall.