ABOUT
Stop the Wind is where plays get unruly.
We believe theater should experiment, misbehave, surprise us—and occasionally break the rules.
Every play needs a different path from page to stage. We build that path around the work and the artists making it, creating the space, connections, resources, and producing muscle to move an idea from what if? to what’s next?
For 30 years, we’ve worked across the theatrical spectrum: commercial and experimental, classical and avant-garde, devised and structured, ensemble and solo. We know how to develop the work, build the right team, find the audience, and get a play into the world.
Our networks are local, national, and global. Our financial structures are flexible. Our approach is anything but one-size-fits-all.
Because great theater rarely arrives fully formed.
It needs people willing to take risks, challenge assumptions, follow the strange idea—and figure out how to make it happen.
At Stop the Wind, we make room for the impossible.
And then we try to produce it.
Even if we have to stop the wind.
WHO WE ARE
Founded and led by NYC-based theatrical producer Carol Ostrow, Stop the Wind is a well-curated team of specialists and assistants ready to be tailored and assembled for each project.
Carol Ostrow is a Drama Desk award-winning producer and the founder of Stop The Wind Theatricals, an independent production company dedicated to the development of new work for the American theater.
Ostrow began her producing career at Vassar, where she developed and founded the Powerhouse Theater, now entering its 45th season. She went on to become the producing director of the award-winning Classic Stage Company, where she produced Sigourney Weaver and other notable artists in reimaginings of the classics. In the wake of 9/11, Ostrow became the producing director of The Flea, where she produced over 150 world premieres, including plays by A.R. Gurney, Elizabeth Swados, Will Eno, Thomas Bradshaw, Adam Rapp, Taylor Mac, Mac Wellman, Erin Courtney, Billy Porter, David Henry Hwang, Craig Lucas, José Rivera, Jeff Whitty, Yussef El Guindi, Amy Freed, Sean Graney, Nick Jones, Qui Nguyen, Jenny Schwartz, Marc Acito, Johnna Adams, Liz Duffy Adams, Bill Cain, CollaborationTown, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, Eisa Davis, Gabriel Jason Dean, Christopher Dimond, Madeleine George, Kate Gersten, Peter Gil-Sheridan, Sevan K. Greene, Kirsten Greenidge, Lillian Garrett-Groag, Jordan Harrison, Lucas Hnath, Ann Marie Healy, Meghan Kennedy, Kimber Lee, Kenneth Lin, Laura Marks, Ellen McLaughlin, Michael Mitnick, Don Nguyen, Dael Orlandersmith, A. Rey Pamatmat, Max Posner, Kate Moira Ryan, Najla Said, Matthew Stephen Smith, Lloyd Suh, Jason Williamson and Bess Wohl, among others.
While producing at The Flea, she spearheaded the construction of a three-theater performing arts complex in Lower Manhattan. Carol has also been an adjunct professor of theater at Vassar College, Chatham College and McGill University.
Concurrently, Ostrow has dedicated her time and vision to an array of not-for-profit institutions. She is proud and humbled to be the current chair of the National Psoriasis Foundation, the world’s leading nonprofit organization serving people affected by psoriatic disease. She has served on the board since 2015 and is galvanized to lead the organization with the move of its headquarters to Washingon D.C., the launch of a new strategic plan and a new vision under a newly appointed CEO.
Ostrow holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. She is very proud to be a member of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College, where she chairs the development committee and co-chairs the $500 million capital campaign Fearlessly Consequential, A Campaign for our Collective Future. She also serves on the David Geffen Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors.
Ostrow is a member of the board of the Sag Harbor Partnership, a working civic organization dedicated to preserving the natural, historic and cultural life of this unique American village. Carol is also a past trustee and the current co-chair of the Emeritus Trustees of Central Synagogue, one of the largest and most vibrant synagogues in North America.
Carol is married to Michael Graff, a managing director at Warburg Pincus, LLC. They have four adult children: daughters Anabel, a writer; Emily, an editor; Candace, a public defender; and son, Jesse, a strategic analyst in finance. She and her family count Pittsburgh, London, Montreal and New York City once again, as home.
Carol Ostrow
