ABOUT ME
Emily Mendelsohn is a Brooklyn-based object theater director whose work interrogates memory and identity.
Collaborating with artists in the US and East Africa, Emily staged Deborah Asiimwe’s Cooking Oil through residencies in Kigali (Rwanda), Kampala (Uganda), and Los Angeles (co-produced by Los Angeles Performance Practice and Center for New Performance). She staged Erik Ehn’s Maria Kizito through a reading at Uganda’s National Theatre, an in-process performance at La MaMa NYC (as part of Ehn’s 17 play cycle Soulographie: Our Genocides), and a full production in New Orleans, partnering with ArtSpot Productions. This exchange has been supported by Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs, US Embassy in Uganda, Brown University, NACL’S Deep Space Residency, Durfee, Goethe Institute Uganda, Puffin Foundation, Alternate Roots, and Project Troubador.
Emily’s other directing credits include Kristina Wong’s Wong Street Journal (Flynn Center, Z Space Below/Circuit Network, REDCAT, Miami Light), Virginia Grise’s Your Healing is Killing Me (MECA), Katori Hall’s Children of Killers (Castillo Theater), and Elizabeth Spackman’s sky like sky (National Arts Festival, South Africa). She has directed workshops and readings at Boom Arts, New Dramatists, St Louis Repertory Theatre, NYTW Dartmouth Residency, Playwrights Center (MN), Cornell University, Arts Printing House (Lithuania), CAATA/OSF and others.
She was a five year participant in Erik Ehn’s More Life exchange in Rwanda and Uganda, and was an associate producer of international festival Centre x Centre in Kigali, Rwanda 2010. With Adolfo Madera and Sage Lewis, she co-curated Border Labs/Laboratorios Fronterizos, a microfestival fostering connections between artists in Tijuana and Los Angeles.
Emily was recipient of a TCG Global Connections In the Lab and On the Road programs, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Uganda. She holds an MFA in directing from CalArts. She is an affiliate artist with New Georges and a core member of Theater Without Borders/CLIMATE LENS.