Ari Roth (born January 10, 1961) is an American theatrical producer, playwright, director and educator. From 2014 to 2020 Roth served as the Artistic Director of Mosaic Theater Company of DC and was formerly the Artistic Director of Theater J at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center from 1997 to 2014. Over 18 seasons at Theater J, he produced more than 129 productions and created festivals including "Locally Grown: Community Supported Art," "Voices from a Changing Middle East", and Theater J's acclaimed "Beyond The Stage" and "Artistic Director's Roundtable" series. In 2010, Roth was named as one of the Forward 50, honoring nationally prominent "men and women who are leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century, and in 2017 he was given the DC Mayor's Arts Award for Visionary Leadership. In 2021, Roth launched a new partnership with A. Lorraine Robinson, founding Voices Festival Productions, to be the new home for his long-running "Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival." Their first public event was a virtual benefit in support of "Ukrainian Playwrights Under Siege" in partnership with the Arts Club of Washington. In December 2014, Roth was dismissed as the Artistic Director of Theater J. Hundreds of noted figures in the world of American theater contested his termination; Tony Kushner called it "an act of political censorship." Specifically, it was said that Roth was fired due to his protesting the DCJCC cancelation of Theater J's "Voices from a Changing Middle East". Jeremy Gerard wrote: "It is absolutely clear that Roth was fired because of the content of the work he has so thoughtfully and ably championed for the last two decades." He also claimed that Roth was disciplined for "blatantly political reasons." The DCJCC denies that Roth's termination was political. Immediately following his departure from Theater J, Roth founded the Mosaic Theater Company of DC in December 2014. In November of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, he resigned as Mosaic's artistic director after complaints from staff. Life The son of German-born refugees of the Holocaust, Roth was born and raised in Chicago, where he graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory High School. He studied playwriting at the University of Michigan with Milan Stitt (author of The Runner Stumbles) and Kenneth Thorpe Rowe (author of the textbook, Write that Play). Based on his playwriting, he received two Avery Hopwood Awards for Drama, the first in