Dana Golan for The New York Times
About Me
I was a theater director and arts leader for over 20 years, and, in 2023, made a right turn into nursing. In August 2024, I completed Columbia University's Masters Direct-Entry Program, an accelerated nursing program to become an RN and began working as a nurse in a rehabilitation center/senior living facility and as a research assistant for leading academics at Columbia.
With a newfound passion to pursue a career in oncology as nurse practitioner, I entered the Doctorate of Nurse Practitioner program, also at Columbia, as a Family Nurse Practitioner and plan to graduate in Spring 2027. Simultaneously, I now work at Weill Cornell as a Clinical Research Nurse in Breast and Thoracic Oncology, caring for breast and lung cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials.
Committed to finding a way to integrate theater into the healthcare arena and inspired by the recent death of my brother and mother, I co-created a theatrical adaptation of Loss and Grief: Personal Stories of Doctors and Other Healthcare Professionals entitled Staging Loss: Talking about what we do not talk about. This interactive theatrical presentation, created for healthcare professionals, centers on the personal loss and grief that healthcare professionals experience. My collaborators, Matthew Loscalzo, Linda Klein, Jennifer Chambers and I presented this in September 2024 at City of Hope, in March 2025 at the APOS Conference (in partnership with City Theatre), at the Gold Foundation Summit in September 2025 (in partnership with Round House Theater), and next up is the ADEC Conference in Baltimore in March 2026 (in partnership with Round House Theater) and then the ONS Conference in May 2026.
Why this Career Change?
Between 2017-2019, I created, developed, and directed Novenas for a Lost Hospital, a theatrical requiem for Saint Vincent’s Hospital. The show was produced at Rattlestick Theater in the West Village, where I had been the artistic director for the past seven years. The theater is around the corner from Saint Vincent’s former location before it closed in 2010. Through the research and rehearsal process, I saw the immense impact a hospital can have on a community, from the intimate and essential bedside interactions to larger systemic roles of support. At each performance, I met former Saint Vincent’s nurses and doctors and patients who all shared life- changing stories of loss, healing, grief, and community. I began to realize it was time for me to be of service in a much more hands-on, active, and immersive way. Novenas for a Lost Hospital closed in October 2019, and just a few short months later, the world felt the devastating impact of COVID. My desire and urgency to shift gears and move into the front line grew even louder and stronger.
My theater career began after graduating with a BFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon and a Masters of Arts Management, and I very much enjoyed directing and creating programming in NYC and around the country. My theater work dealt first-hand with community and social justice issues (incarceration, housing insecurity, health care). I feel grateful for my long and beloved theater career in the theater.