Graduate Musical Theatre Writing

Education

B.A. Brown
M.F.A. Yale
M.F.A. New York

Biography

Rachel Sheinkin has been seeking out odd and interesting collaborations in musical theater since graduating from Cycle X of Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. For her work on The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a collaboration with William Finn, James Lapine, conceiver Rebecca Feldman and an amazing improvisational and musical theater acting company, she received Tony and Drama Desk Awards for best book of a musical in 2005. Other work includes two projects with the rock trio GrooveLily: Striking 12, a hybrid concert/play, written for and with the band and director Ted Sperling (Prince Music Theater, Philadelphia; Old Globe, San Diego; TheatreWorks Palo Alto, and upcoming in New York City) and Sleeping Beauty Wakes, a commission from and for the acting company Deaf West (upcoming at CTG Los Angeles, spring 2006). Serenade, her NYU thesis with Nils Olaf Dolven has received developmental support from the Norwegian Consulates in New York andLondon, Daryl Roth New Voices award, and the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation Fellowship for work with choreographer Benjamin Millepied. Blood Drive, her NYU one-act,with music by Joel Derfner, was produced as part of Notes Across a Small Pond, Bridewell Theater London, and workshopped in its new full-length form at the O’neill National Music Theater Conference. Before her unexpected turn to musicals Rachel studied playwriting with Paula Vogel atBrownUniversity, and at Yale School of Drama, where music began to creep into her work. She’s been a Manhattan Theater Club Playwriting Fellow, a MacDowell Colony resident, and was recently commissioned with composer Michael Friedman to write a new musical for Playwrights Horizons. A member of Dramatists Guild, Rachel was thrilled to join the adjunct faculty at GMTWP in 2002.