Rachael Langton’s Directing Portfolio
Here is a sample of photos and videos from Rachael’s directing work. It ranges from live theater both indoor and outdoor, and virtual productions from the pandemic.
Live Theater
East Side Stories, Actually
Metropolitan Playhouse in May 2022
This collection of original short plays about authenticity and belonging throughout the history of the East Village. The production focused on the individual perspectives that come together together to form a collective story about the area.
East Side Stories, Actually
A collection of 5 original plays by Tom Lavagnino, Natalina Lopez, Christian Missonak, Bara Swain and Jonathon Ward
with Alexander M. Cole, Hannah Hakim, Casey Killoran, Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning, Ron Moreno, Rebecca Ana Peña, Joan Porter, and Ryan Wright
Set by Jacob Brown. Costumes by Sabrinna Fabi. Lights by Nicholas Palatella. Sound by Josh Samuels. Stage Manager Madeliene Blossom and Abi Walls
directed by Rachael Langton
A Shot Rang Out
Theatre Row in July 2022
This one-act play centers on a white police officer, a white activist and a black student, who are locked in a warehouse when a police protest turns violent. The production focused on the complexities of activism and what happens when opposing sides are locked in a pressure chamber with no place to escape.
A Shot Rang OUt
with Marquis Neal, Samantha Simone, and James Smart
stage management Ilana Moskowitz
directed by Rachael Langton
This Sinking Island
Rising Sun Performance Company’s
Theatre for Young Audience Festival in August 2021
This children’s play about climate change discusses the affects of global warming. Inspired by photographs and news clippings from climate refugees, the production transformed found objects into instruments and props to tell the story, and used music and movement to express the beauty of the earth and how we need to protect it.
This Sinking Island
devised by The Anthropologists, and written by Melissa Moschitto, with music by Mariah Freda
with Emma Copp, Luis Feleciano, Jonathon Wong Frye, Leica Lucien, Josephine Pizzino
stage management by Callie Considine
choreography by Marissa Stamps
directed by Rachael Langton
Self Storage
The Chain Theatre in August 2022
Self Storage by Eugene Grygo is about Benny who is suffering from alcoholism and living in his lover Paula’s storage unit. When Paula decides its time to move out of the storage unit, she asks Benny to come with her and leave his trauma behind. This production explored how trauma and addiction affects motive and relationship.
Self Storage
by Eugene Grygo
with Mateo Moreno and Dana Panepinto
stage management by Sydney Gager
directed by Rachael Langton
Mystery of the Green Teeth Ghost
Pumpkin Point Festival on Governors Island and
Frigid NY’s The Days of the Dead Festival at The Kraine Theater in October 2022
This children’s performance brought Halloween to life through an interactive mystery. Adapted from a virtual solo performance, Rachael worked with the playwright, Holly Hepp-Galván to create three detective characters who assigned audience members as suspects, and guided the audience through solving the case of the mysterious green teethed ghost through silly questions and whimsical clues.
The Mystery of the Green Teeth Ghost
by Holly Hepp-Galván
with Lluvia Almanza, Ally Harwell, and Juliana Silva,
stage management by Nicco Torrez and Elliot Colby
directed by Rachael Langton
Graduation
The International Human Rights Festival in October 2018
This play features Lucas, a fresh graduate who holds onto his last chance of a life with his college roommate, Aaron, who denies the mutual love that could profoundly change their lives. The rehearsal process included intimacy directing exercises to build the layers of emotion between these two character, culminating to the climax where they ultimately break up. The play performed at the International Human Rights Festival to a sold out audience.
Graduation
by Eugene Grygo
with Chase Naylor and JJ Parkley
Lighting by Nicholas Patella. Stage Managed by Callie Considine.
directed by Rachael Langton
Fable from an Unstable Table
Rising Sun Performance Company’s Summer Residency
on Governors Island in July 2019
This production wove three short plays about miscommunication and societal rules into a cohesive performance. Featuring an ensemble of four actors, this rehearsal processes focused on physicalizing each character and using sound and slow motion to uncover the characters deep desires within a world of restraint and propriety.
Fable from an Unstable Table
by Susan Goodell
with Jimmy Berry, Zarra Kaahn, Samantha Quiles & Samyuktha Viswanathan.
directed by Rachael Langton
Virtual Theater
East Village Trader Joe’s
Metropolitan Virtual Playhouse in June 2020
This virtual production discussed the complexities of upholding anti-corporate principles while loving a corporation like Trader Joe’s. Virtual backgrounds designed by Randy Wong-Westbrooke grounded the production in a community basement. The actors explored bursts of emotion that build as each character breaks down and confesses their love for Trader Joe’s, all while the entire room turns into a Trader Joe’s.
East Village Trader Joe’s
by Jessica Moss
with Ollie Cochado, Lianne Kressin, Jammie Patton, Sushma Saha, and Perri Yaniv
backgrounds by Randy Wong-Westbrooke
directed by Rachael Langton
A Woman’s Honor
Metropolitan Virtual Playhouse in September 2020
This 1917s play discusses the meaning of honor for a woman and how much right they have to control their own honor through quick witty dialogue and discussion. This virtual production heightened the women’s different perspectives, and showcased their power through numbers, culminating in hundreds of women flooding the screen and coercing the prisoner to plead guilty.
A Woman’s Honor
by Susan Glaspell
with Viena Aiello, Kathy Christal, Christina Eskridge, Maggie Anne Gillete, Zarra Kaahn, Jacob Shipley, Rebecca Simpson-Wallack, Danielle Stanek, and Lawrence Winslow
virtual settings by Rifka Milder
directed by Rachael Langton
The Outside
Metropolitan Virtual Playhouse in February 2021
This virtual production grounded heightened language with the harsh actions of the winter Cape scene in the 1910s. Using OBS, Rachael pieced together live videos of actors onto one virtual stage where their timed movements worked together to create one cohesive picture.
The Outside
by Susan Glaspell
with Lluvia Almanza, David Patrick Ford, Jonathan Horvath, Teresa Kelsey, James Ross
settings by Liz Engelhardt
directed by Rachael Langton
On a Wing and a Prayer by Judd Lear Silverman
Rising Sun Performance Company Virtual Productions in August 2020
This virtual workshop focused on two bygone Wing Walkers who are try to keep the art of wing walking alive as their association dwindles. Re-imagined for zoom, Rachael worked with the actors to build each beat within the script and develop rich characters. After recording the scene via zoom, Rachael edited their videos to create on cohesive script, adding a montage introduction to set the scene and introduce the audience to the world that the two characters are nostalgic for.
On a Wing and A Prayer
by Judd Lear Silverman
with Monica Levitt-Blaze and Josephine Pizzino
directed by Rachael Langton
Hope Throws Her Heart Away by Susan Goodell
Rising Sun Performance Company
Virtual Productions in June 2020
This excerpt from the larger stage play was adapted for zoom to allow the playwright space to workshop the dialogue, as the main character Hope, navigates becoming her perfect self to find love and happiness.
Hope Throws Her Heart Away
by Susan Goodell
with Jennifer Adkins, Josephine Pizzino, and Samantha Simone
virtual settings by Burt Lee
directed by Rachael Langton
Nightmare on Zoomstreet by Kati Frazier
Rising Sun Performance Company
Virtual Productions in October 2020
This virtual production performed live as part of a Halloween festival. The production experimented with creating moments of horror parody using objects found around our house, like string to make a blanket move on its own, or shadow puppets to show an epic scene between villain and hero.
Nightmare on ZoomStreet
by Kati Frazier
with David Anthony and Antonio Miniño
directed by Rachael Langton
Scrooge by Michael Hagins
Rising Sun Performance Company
Virtual Productions in December 2020
This original virtual production reimagined A Christmas Carol in the age of Zoom. The script called for musical interludes performed by carolers. As the Music Director, Rachael created a cappella arrangements (and some originally lyrics) for five Christmas Carols, musically directed four singers in learning and performing the music, mixed the sound, and filmed and edited the musical segments to fit within the production as a whole. The carolers became a greek chorus that commented on the action of the play, and gave us a fuller look into the world of the play as the play transitioned from one scene to the next.