Emily Mendelsohn

Emily Mendelsohn is a theater director working at the intersection of aesthetic experiment, contemplation, and social change. With an ensemble of artists from East Africa and the US, she staged Erik Ehn’s Maria Kizito, Deborah Asiimwe’s Cooking Oil, and Doreen Baingana’s Hills of Salt and Sugar in the US, Rwanda, and Uganda. She has directed and/or developed new work by playwrights Kristina Wong, Caridad Svich, Katori Hall, Virginia Grise, and Rachel Jendrzejewski. She taught directing for over ten years at The Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Program has worked as a guest artist at CalArts, Brown, Lewis and Clark, Fordham, and Pace. She has written about her work for anthologies published by Toronto, TCG, and No Passport Press. She is a Fulbright Fellow, a multiple recipient of TCG’s Global Connections program, and a New Georges Affiliate Artist where she recently completed an Audrey Fellowship.

Education: BA, History and Philosophy of Science, Smith College, 2001. MFA, Theater Directing, California Institute of the Arts, 2009. MDiv, Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement, Union Theological Seminary, 2023.

Studio Affiliation: Faculty Leadership Committee/ Directing Faculty, PHTS Studio

Theatre Studies: Special interests include intersections of contemplation and activism.