Ms. Nelson is a Washington DC-based theatre professional with a commitment to living and working a consistent principle that values human dignity, justice, compassion and creativity. In her more than 40 years as a theatre professional, she has been an actor, director, playwright, administrator and professor. Her professional career began at Arena Stage with the Living Stage Theatre Company.  She next served as Producing Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre Company, at that time the only professional African American theatre in Washington. During her tenure there she directed more than twenty productions and readings, including several world premieres.

Directing credits include productions at Mosaic Theater, where she is resident director; Ford’s Theatre, where she currently serves as Senior Artistic Advisor; Round House; Theatre J; Forum Theatre; Imagination Stage; Adventure Theatre; Washington Shakespeare; Rep Stage; Everyman Theatre; the Hangar Theatre; Penumbra Theatre; the Fulton Theatre; Manhattan Class Company; Young Playwrights Theater; and the Kennedy Center Youth and Family Programs. She has also directed at two campuses of the University of Maryland; George Washington University; Virginia Commonwealth University; and University of South Carolina.

Ms. Nelson is also a working playwright: her play Torn from the Headlines won the Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Most Outstanding New Play.  Most recently he play Run Home was presented as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Festival. Ms. Nelson has taught at UCLA, George Washington University, George Mason University and American University, and most recently at Georgetown University where she taught Theatre for Social Change, encouraging young artists and scholars to put their creative intelligence in service to communities in need. She is past president of the League of Washington Theatres and served on the Board of Directors of the Theatre Communications Group.