Rachel Dickstein

Rachel Dickstein is a deviser, director and choreographer of theatre, opera, and dance-based performance. She founded the Obie-winning theatre company Ripe Time over twenty five years ago, to develop and produce ensemble-based adaptations from literature. She also works frequently as a freelance director in opera, theatre and music, most recently with Silkroad Ensemble and Rhiannon Giddens on Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual. Rachel is a MacDowell Fellow, a BAM Next Wave artist, and recipient of the NEA/TCG Director’s Fellowship and five Drama League fellowships over the last thirty years. Her work has been commissioned from BAM, ASU Gammage, Center Theatre Group, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia, PA). She conceives and creates stories using the language of memory and imagination to trace how marginalized bodies negotiate identity in the face of cultural constrictions. 

Some of Ripe Time’s past work includes the world premieres of COMPASS (ASU Gammage, Lumberyard, Watermill, LPAC), the critically acclaimed SLEEP (BAM Next Wave Festival, Yale Rep, Annenberg Center), THE WORLD IS ROUND (BAM-Fisher), SEPTIMUS AND CLARISSA (Joe A. Calloway, 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 Ohio Theatre. Opera and Music based theatre works include: SANCTUARY with SilkRoad Ensemble and Rhiannon Giddens (National/International Tour), BLOOD MOON by Garret Fisher/ Ellen McLaughlin (BMP, 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). Rachel was the recipient of the 2015 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award and was nominated for the 2014 Alan Schneider Award, and the 2014 and 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award. Two of her productions have been selected to be featured in the Prague Quadrennial in 2015 and 2019. Proud past recipient of the Drama League Fall Production Program. BA, Yale College. Associate Professor, Theatre and Performance at SUNY Purchase.

Upcoming in 2027: MOTHER TONGUE by Juhi Bansal and Neil Aitkin at LA Opera, Prototype and BMP Productions. IN[FINITE] TIME with Rinde Eckert (Ripe Time, Mercury Store, Quick Center at Fairfield University)

www.racheldickstein.com

www.ripetime.org