Emily is a theatre educator, arts researcher, and arts administrator with over twenty years’ experience using theatre as a tool to empower young people.

Born in Santa Monica, California into a family of theatre makers and educators, Emily proudly carries on the family trade. She holds a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, an M.A. in Educational Theatre from NYU’s Steinhardt School, and an M.A. in Arts Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Emily began teaching while still an undergraduate at NYU. Soon she was using theatre for social change at community sites all over New York City including the South Bronx, Washington Heights, and Sunset Park through the Children’s Aid Society and The Young Women’s Leadership Institute where she taught Shakespeare and devising with students in grades 7-12.

While in graduate school at NYU Emily focused her coursework on theatre for social justice, which led to her first of many trips to Ireland where she studied abroad at Trinity College, and also to Brazil where she studied with Augusto Boal at the Centre for Theatre of The Oppressed, Rio. From 2009-2021 Emily was the Director of the Williston Theatre at the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where she led all aspects of the theatre program including budget oversight, curriculum development, and program advocacy.

In 2021 Emily returned to school to study arts administration at Teachers College, Columbia University where she researched equity practices of arts administrators in out-of-school educational theatre programs, the role of the arts in youth criminal justice reform, the link between devised theatre and empathy generation, and educational theatre as a disruptive space for masculinity. While at Columbia she was an administrative intern at the People’s Theatre Project in Washington Heights where she was a grant writer for the development team and assistant to the education team. Unable to stay out of the classroom, she was also a PTP Supporting Artist in a Year One Academy class!

She is a founding board member of the Scarlet Sock Foundation, a grant-giving non-profit organisation focused on expanding access to all facets of theatre arts for historically excluded populations. Emily is a fervent believer in the power of theatre to transform lives and the necessity of equitable access to the arts.

In August 2023 she relocated to Dublin, Ireland where she lives with her spouse and three children on coast of the Irish Sea. Emily is the International Projects Manager at Crooked House Theatre Company where she designs and supports youth exchanges that bring young people from all over the world together to use theatre as a tool for building tolerance, equality, social justice, compassion, and empathy.