Sarah Gitenstein

Assistant Professor, Theatre

Specialties

Performance

Research Interests

Directing, Best Practices in Directing, The Body Onstage, Rehearsal Techniques, Text Analysis, Improvisational Devising

Biography

Sarah is a director, educator, performer, writer and speech coach. She is currently an Assistant Professor for the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. Sarah comes to Notre Dame from Northwestern University where she worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the MFA Directing program and the Associate Producer to the MFA Acting program. Her research titled The Body Onstage: Best Practices in Directing addresses how to reduce harm in theatrical spaces while actively investigating the mind-body relationship and its effect on bringing our authentic selves into collaborative processes.

Sarah is a founding member of The New Colony, an emeritus company member of Collaboraction Theatre and a member of the literary circle at American Theatre Company. Sarah is a speech coach for Pinnacle Performance Company and a Communications Specialist at Sheehan and Associates. She teaches executives how to improve their communication and leadership skills through classes such as High Impact Communication, Executive Presence and Storytelling with Data. Her clients have included Abbott Laboratories, Associate Bank, Exelon, McDonalds and Walgreens, to name a few. Acting credits include work at The Kennedy Center, Washington Shakespeare Company, Strawdog Theatre, Collaboraction, The New Colony, and Timeline Theatre. Directing credits include work at Chicago Commercial Collective, Curious Theater, American Theater Company, A Red Orchid Theatre, Raven Theater (Jeff Nomination, Best Director + Best Play) and Writers Theatre. For The New Colony, Sarah directed Kate and Sam Are Not Breaking Up (Jeff Nomination-New Work) and the Off-Broadway, national tour and commercial run of 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche (Winner Best Production New York International Fringe Festival). Sarah was an original contributor to the script for 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, which has since been produced over 150 times and translated into over 5 languages.

Sarah hails from Washington, DC and graduated from Kenyon College with a theater degree and Northwestern University with an MFA in Directing where she was also a Brady Fellow in the Philosophy program.

She is married to the actor Jared Fernley and mom to their kiddos, Charlie and Isaac.