Contact me at jenny.marie.schmidt@gmail.com

Click here to download my curriculum vitae

Read my essay, “Hope in the Shadows: Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me,” for HowlRound Theatre Commons.

About

I am a theater maker, scholar, and teacher. I appreciate that those labels contain multitudes. As a scholar, I study solo performance, feminist theater and performance, the history of popular entertainment, women’s humor, English Renaissance comedy, and German drama. I have a great love for old things and am interested in how to adapt or translate works from the past to our current era. Particularly, I seek to study, revive, and adapt the work of female artists and bring an intersectional feminist approach to my practice in any field.

As a theater maker, I specialize in interdisciplinary and devised performance as well as the revival of classic texts. I am a dramaturg by training—and at heart—though I dip my toes into many pools of creative expression. An actor, director, cellist, pianist, tap dancer, photographer, I am happiest when the boundaries between art forms and creative roles are fluid and the resonance between them can vibrate in harmony.  

I am drawn to teaching for the same reasons I am passionate about making theater. It offers the chance to ask big questions about human existence while at the same time diving deeply into the particulars of human experience. It requires continual learning, an openness to different perspectives, and a willingness to change your mind. Most simply and most keenly, it provides a collective space for sharing knowledge and discovering new ideas. As a teacher, I strive to make my classroom reflect these values, instilling a sense of the joys, explorations, and exchanges of making art into the process of learning.