Our Story
Peacedale Global Arts was created to provide opportunities for artists from the U.S. and other countries — as well as those who identify as nationless — to interact through the arts and create peaceful connections in a divided world.
Our focus is on the depth of connection, trust, and understanding that comes from sustained and reciprocal relationships. We will continue to grow our networks as resources and capacity allow but always with the goal to center artists and create supportive spaces for meaningful cultural exchange.
We draw upon the history of international relationships forged by the Lark (1994-2021), a new play laboratory in New York City that supported thousands of U.S.-based playwrights as well as writers from dozens of countries. The Lark established exchanges with China, France and francophone Africa, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Wales, and several regions in the Middle East.
Peacedale Global Arts Leadership
John Clinton Eisner (Board President) is a stage director and producer of classic and contemporary work as well as a story consultant for theater and film. For 27 years he served as Artistic Director of the Lark, a playwright center and think-tank for the theater based in New York City. Currently he is President of Peacedale Global Arts, supporting writers in their creative process through international and intercultural exchange, and Creative Producer in Residence at En Garde Arts, a national innovator in site-specific, community-based theater. He has worked closely with hundreds of award-winning writers including Katori Hall, Tina Howe, Sam Hunter, David Henry Hwang, Arthur Kopit, Matthew Lopez, Rajiv Joseph, Lisa Kron, Martyna Majok, Mona Mansour, Dominique Morisseau, Robert Schennkan, and Lucy Thurber. Recent projects include: “The Road Less Traveled,” a play commissioning program at Silk Road Rising in Chicago; a yearlong career seminar for MFA playwrights at Columbia University; an International Center for Playwrights in Portugal; a multilingual playwriting residency in Transylvania; and "A Dozen Dreams," one of the very first live theater events in New York City after the pandemic shutdown. He has dedicated his career to reducing structural barriers to the arts and encouraging inclusive pathways into theater and media careers through intercultural exchange, fellowships, increased artist compensation, and local artmaking.
Rajiv Joseph (Board Treasurer) Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and was also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018 with Describe the Night. Other plays include King James, Letters of Suresh, Archduke, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The Lake Effect, The North Pool and Mr. Wolf. Joseph has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal.
Megan McClain (Board Secretary & Artistic Director) is a dramaturg and collaborative theater artist who co-founded Peacedale Global Arts to promote international and intercultural exchange through theater. She guides the company’s new play development initiatives in the U.S. and abroad. She previously served as Second Stage Theater’s Literary Manager, scouting plays for the organization’s Broadway and Off-Broadway venues. As the former R&D Program Director at The Civilians, she supported the work of over 80 writers, composers, and directors creating new plays and musicals. Additional dramaturgy/literary work for: Goodman Theatre, Disney Theatrical, Playwrights Realm, The Lark, Superhero Clubhouse, PlayPenn and more. M.F.A Dramaturgy: UMass Amherst