Sarah Plotkin is a cultural worker, theater-maker, and educator living in Boston, MA. She has worked as a freelance director and teaching artist in the Greater Boston Area with ArtsEmerson, Wheelock Family Theatre, Somerville Arts for Youth, Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington Children's Theatre, Beaver Country Day School, and Newton South High School among others. From 2014 to 2018 Sarah was the Founding Artistic Director of Electric Eye Ensemble, a collaborative theater company exploring American myths and stories through a revisionist, feminist lens. Directing/devising credits include: Coming Together (Temple Israel of Boston), Creating Our Stories (Emerson College), The Cave (Daughters Collective), Molting (Object Movement Residency), Every Feeling I’ve Ever Felt (Ars Nova), Earthrise (Dixon Place), Welcome to the Doll Den (The Tank), Juniper Tree (Dixon Place), and Home in Motion (WOW Cafe Theatre).
Sarah has an MA in Theater Education and Applied Theatre from Emerson College, and a BA in Directing and Literature from Sarah Lawrence College.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I collaborate with community artists, professional artists, and young people to build connections across divides. I work through non-hierarchical, collaborative structures to create original performances where everyone in the room has a voice and space to bring their whole selves. As a Jewish artist, I am inspired by the rituals I’ve inherited to center community-building practices in all of my classes, rehearsals, and performances.
My work sits at the intersection of theater, storytelling, and community organizing, and uses tools from those fields in service of liberatory, collaborative art-making. I am committed to co-creating equitable, anti-racist, and inclusive spaces. Within that framework, I build reciprocal and trusting partnerships; use a trauma-informed approach that centers accessibility, flexibility, and presence; and create my work in the spaces and through the artistic structures that most benefit my community partners. Community engagement is at the core of my practice, and I often draw upon puppetry, movement, clowning, mask, song, and social justice practices to meet the interests of the communities with whom I’m partnering.
AWARDS AND HONORS
2021 Arts & Culture Community Impact Grant Fund, Combined Jewish Philanthropies
2021 Opportunity Fund Grant, The Mayor's Of ice of Arts and Culture and The City of Boston
2021 Mass Cultural Council Grant, Brookline Commission for the Arts
2017 Creative Space Grant, The Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York
2017 Observership Class, Stage Directors and Choreographers Federation
2016 Rough Draft Residency, The Drama League
2016 Sunday Residency, The Tank
2014 Activist for Social Development Fellow, All Stars Project
2014 Dorothy Stickney Theatre Arts Scholarship, Zonta Club of New York
| Sarah Plotkin CV.pdf |