About Rachel

Rachel founded the Obie-winning theatre company Ripe Time twenty five years ago, to develop and produce ensemble-based, embodied adaptations from literature.  The company has received commissions from BAM, Arizona State University Gammage, Center Theatre Group, and Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Recent work includes the world premieres of COMPASS (ASU Gammage), Haruki Murakami’s SLEEP (BAM Next Wave Festival, Yale Rep, Annenberg),  THE WORLD IS ROUND (BAM-Fisher, Obie Award), SEPTIMUS AND CLARISSA (Drama Desk, Drama League nominations, Baruch Performing Arts Center) FIRE THROWS (based on Antigone) at 3LD, INNOCENTS (based on Edith Wharton's THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, BETROTHED (based on stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, Chekhov and S. Ansky) at the original Ohio Theatre.   

Rachel also specializes in bringing her signature visual aesthetic to new plays, chamber opera and new music theatre. Recent: BLOOD MOON by Garrett Fisher/ Ellen McLaughlin (Beth Morrison Projects, Prototype), DESIRE by Hannah Lash for Jack Quartet (Miller Theatre, Columbia),  Kamala Sankaram/ Susan Yankowitz’s THUMBPRINT (LA Opera, Prototype), Vijay Iyer/Mike Ladd’s IN WHAT LANGUAGE? (Asia Society, REDCAT, PICA TBA Festival). Upcoming: design and direction for Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual with SilkRoad Ensemble and Rhiannon Giddens, In[finite] Time created with Rinde Eckert, WomenWaterRising, a song cycle/video installation project created with Jean Rohe and Hana S. Kim, Salvaged Pages, a new opera by Michael Zapruder (with libretto by Rachel) and Star Singer by Juhi Bansal & Neil Aitkin (set to premiere in 2027-28 with Beth Morrison Projects/Prototype.)

Rachel is a MacDowell Fellow. She received of the 2015 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award and was nominated for the 2014 Alan Schneider Award, the 2014 and 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award and the 2011 SDC Joe A. Calloway Outstanding Directing award. She is a proud recipient of four Drama League fellowships including the recent Impact Residency/ Director-in-Residence at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center. She also received a NEA-TCG Director’s Fellowship, and has engaged in residencies at Berkeley Rep Ground Floor,  LMCC, JCC in Manhattan, Watermill Center, and the Civilians R&D Group. She has been a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop since 1994.

Rachel received her BA at Yale College and continued her training in the room with such renowned artists/companies as Martha Clarke, Jeune Lune, Joan Schirle/Dell’Arte, Complicite, and Mary Zimmerman/ Lookingglass.  Rachel is a lifelong educator and has taught at Fordham, the New School, Lincoln Center Education, the Film Society of Lincoln Center (co-founder of “Deeper into Movies” education program) and currently serves as Associate Professor, and Co-Chair of Theatre and Performance at Purchase College, SUNY. She is the author of Towards Embodied Performance: Directing and the Art of Composition, published by Routledge in June 2024 and available for purchase.

Background image from Sleep at BAM with Jiehae Park, Saori Tsukada, Photo by Max Gordon.