Dale Heinen

Dale Heinen is the co-founder and executive and artistic director of the BorderLight Theatre Festival, which she launched in Cleveland in 2019 with co-founder Jeff Pence. Held each summer in downtown Cleveland, BorderLight combines a local and national fringe festival, acclaimed international touring productions and new work made with Cleveland partners; its 2025 edition brought 49 productions and 280 artists to nine venues over four days.

Heinen began her theatre career at Footsteps, an Equity theatre in Chicago, where she became co-artistic director and was named one of Chicago's best directors three years running by the trade paper PerformInk. She later moved to Europe and kept directing new plays in Chicago, Glasgow, Cleveland, New York and London, and workshopping new plays in places like Japan and Brazil. For seven years she was a dramaturg and then artistic associate at Soho Theatre in London's West End, and she has sat on literary panels for leading London theatres and judged international playwriting competitions. She has directed more than thirty professional productions, recognized by Chicago's Jeff Awards and After Dark Awards and Glasgow's Arches Award for Directors. She holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MFA in theatre directing from Middlesex University in London.