Born and raised in Tehran, Deniz Khateri is an Iranian-American theatre artist based in New York. Her work experiments with form, exploring memory, grief, immigration, and the idea of home across theatre, contemporary opera, music-theatre, and animation.

Her writing has been published in American Theatre Magazine, Puppetry International, and by Brill. Her plays and performances have been presented nationally and internationally at venues and festivals including The Tank NYC, Exponential Festival, Ice Factory 2022, Chain Theatre NYC Festival, Bostonia Bohemia, International Puppet Fringe Festival, and the CUNY Graduate Center’s Performed Knowledge Festival, among others. She has written and directed experimental librettos and music-theatre works that challenge the conventions of theatre and contemporary opera. Her opera Salt was described as “remarkable on every level” (Ewing Reviewing) and was nominated for Best Production and Best Direction by Broadway Boston Magazine.

Khateri has collaborated with contemporary classical composers and companies including Oper Frankfurt, Guerrilla Opera, Dinosaur Annex, and Long Beach Opera, creating works that integrate performance, video, and shadow puppetry. She has also developed work through residencies at La MaMa (Season 64), New Perspectives Theatre, University Settlement, and the Center at West Park, and was selected as a playwriting lab resident with New Perspectives Theatre.

Her honors include the UNIMA-USA Nancy Staub Award for excellence in writing for puppetry, the Al-Bustan Award for her solo show A Bach’eh Who Wanted to Become Bach, and grants from NYSCA, NYFA, and the Jim Henson Foundation. She is a PEN America Dream Out Loud selected playwright.

She is the creator of the Oscar-qualified animated documentary series Diasporan, for which she serves as writer, director, animator, and singer; the series explores the everyday realities of immigrant life and has screened internationally.

Khateri holds an MA in Theatre from the City University of New York. She has trained in master classes with artists including Peter Brook, Paul Zaloom, and the Gardzienice Theatre Company. She currently teaches as an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College.