Rachel Gita Karp

I make performances about U.S. politics and policy. My performance-making begins when I learn something about the U.S. that boggles my mind: a statistic about contemporary life that's problematic, an aspect of our country's past that's different from how we do things in the present. I do far-reaching research to make sense of what I've learned: recovering history, exploring culture, engaging experts. I then transform that research into invitations for others to interrogate the politics and policies with me. Through participation, curiosity, and generosity, we work together to understand these specific and systemic conditions on physical and intellectual, communal and personal levels--and to see how each person can act to change the politics and policies if they wish: to make them, and our country, what they want and need them to be.

A production photo from PACKING AND CRACKING, a party bus performance about gerrymandering. Co-created and directed by Rachel Gita Karp, presented in 2021 through the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics. Photo Credit: Kitoko Chargois.

Rachel Gita Karp writes and directs performances about U.S. politics and public policy. Her current focuses are reproductive freedom, gender representation in politics, voting, and privacy. Rachel has developed and directed new performances about these topics and more through The Drama League, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Ars Nova, Mabou Mines, Irondale, Brooklyn Arts Council, the Center for Artistic Activism, the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics, Actors Theatre of Louisville, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, The Wild Project, The Brick, The Flea, IRT, Dixon Place, Philly Fringe, Incubator Arts Project, Women Center Stage, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Monson Arts, Barn Arts, Anonymous Ensemble, Orchard Project, the Powerhouse and Samuel French Festivals, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chatham University, Columbia University's graduate and undergraduate schools, and Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama. Associate and assistant directing credits include productions on Broadway, Off-, and regional, including productions through Signature Theatre, The Mad Ones, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, 13P, Big Art Group, Woodshed Collective, and PearlDamour. BA, Columbia; MFA, Carnegie Mellon. At Carnegie Mellon, Rachel was a John Wells Directing Fellow, which supported her academics, and a Milton and Cynthia Friedman Fellow, which supported her work in women's policy research in Washington, D.C.