Surface moved to California in 1982 and served as the associate director of the California Theatre Center (CTC) from 1982 to 1988. She wrote her first plays for and with the acting company of CTC, including
Prodigy, Blessings and
Most Valuable Player, a play about
Jackie Robinson. In 1989, Surface moved to Washington, DC, to write and direct for the
John F. Kennedy Center's first season of Theatre for Young Audiences. She has since written and/or directed productions for both young and adult audiences at numerous Washington theaters including
Arena Stage,
Round House Theatre,
Folger Theatre, and
Constellation Theatre, and has had nineteen productions at the Kennedy Center. Surface is the founding Artistic Director (2009–2015) of the Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, an all-arts festival. Surface has also created interactive performances for very young children, with a program of plays for infants and preschool aged toddlers called Theatre for the Very Young. Female characters center prominently in Surface's work. She was commissioned by Arena Stage to write a monologue for
My Body, No Choice (2022) and she directed
She Persisted (a musical by Adam Tobin and Deborah Wicks La Puma, based on the
book by
Chelsea Clinton) for Adventure Theatre MTC in 2024.
Surface-Maddox collaborations Surface's 1997 Kennedy Center commission and three-time national touring production of
The Nightingale, a dance-theater piece created with choreographer
Dana Tai Soon Burgess, launched her 10-year collaboration with composer David Maddox. Together, Surface and Maddox created five music-theater works commissioned by Theater of the First Amendment (TFA),
George Mason University's professional theater from 1990 to 2012. These collaborative productions included: •
Sing Down the Moon: Appalachian Wonder Tales •
Perseus Bayou: The Search for the Cajun Medusa •
Mississippi Pinocchio •
The Odyssey of Telémeca •
Lift: Icarus and Me Four of these shows were nominated for the Charles MacArthur Award for Best New Play. Surface received the 2002 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical for
Perseus Bayou. Plays Surface has been commissioned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, to write, direct, and produce four plays for family audiences inspired by visual art: • ''Who's in the Hopper'', inspired by the work of
Edward Hopper •
Framed, inspired by the work of
Roy Lichtenstein •
Forward 54th, Inspired by
August St. Gaudens Shaw Memorial • ''Color's Garden: An Adventure with the Elements of Art'', inspired by the cut-outs of
Henri Matisse Surface explains that these plays were created to "engage the public in a very emotional and lively, personal way in the art." Inspired by the artists' lives and methods, these plays are not biographies. They are independent theatrical experiences that illuminate the spirit of the visual artists' work. In a 2018 article for the Journal of Museum Education, Surface and article co-author Nathalie Ryan share the pedagogical approach of the program.
Workshops Surface now leads a series, "Write into Art," as well as reflective writing workshops inspired by art through the
Smithsonian Associates. She also has presented art-inspired writing workshops through the
Washington National Cathedral and the
Chautauqua Institute. She also facilitates Writers' Studios in the US and Europe. Surface designs each art-based writing workshop to pair a specific type of writing with a specific work of art, such as using landscapes to explore setting or portraits to explore character. == Honors and awards ==