Sarah Shin (she/her/hers) is a Schwenksville-raised, Boston-trained, Brooklyn-based Korean American theatre artist. After years of studying classical piano, Sarah got addicted to being in musicals probably because it was the closest thing to being a KPOP star without leaving the country. In high school, she hit her first dry spell of no offers and found her way into directing and self-producing her art. Fast forward to now, Sarah is a performer/director/dramaturg/producer/musician/teacher/creator/arts leader whose work lives at the intersection of cultural work, creative leadership, and community engagement, with a curiosity for uncovering folk and local histories and exploring our rapidly evolving relationship to technology and globalization.
Sarah has directed at the regional, fringe, and collegiate level across the country, including Boston Globe’s 2022 Top 10 Pick The Chinese Lady (which also received 5 Elliot Norton Award Nominations and 1 Win), Wolf Play (Brandeis University), and The NY Premiere of Lavina Jadhwani’s The Sitayana (or “How to Make An Exit”) (The Tank). She has assisted at McCarter Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, New York Theatre Workshop, American Repertory Theater, Shakespeare & Company, All for One Theater, PBS ALL Arts, & Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, and held the SDC Observership for Broadway’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Sarah has also collaborated with Clubbed Thumb, The Song Collective, Huntington Theatre Co., Front Porch Arts collective, Company One Theatre, Speakeasy Stage, Musical Theatre Factory, MCC Theater, The Parsnip Ship, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Pan Asian Rep, Ma-Yi Theater, Artists at Play, Asian American Arts Alliance, The Theatre Offensive, Pao Arts Center, and Chuang Stage as an actor, director, and producer.
She co-founded Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston (AATAB) in 2018 to empower and connect Asian American student and working artists in Boston, and more recently co-founded Queer Asian Babes in 2023, a social collective that centers intersectional community building for Queer and Trans Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander American artists. She is currently the Resident Director for Ma-Yi Writers PlayLab, a Ping Chong & Co. Teaching Artist, a Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 4 Member, an Artistic Associate of Sanguine Theatre Company, and a 2020-2021 Asian American Arts Alliance Artist-in-Virtual-Residence, where she developed some of her solo performance work. When she’s not working, you can find Sarah practicing yoga, playing soccer, or drinking some iced barley tea at the Korean spa post KBBQ and Karaoke ;). BFA Theatre Arts Boston University.
Her grandfather started the first Korean American newspaper in Philadelphia when he first immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, and her father owns a Japanese and Korean restaurant – almost 20 years running. Sarah hopes to continue the legacy of being a badass Korean American and loving food.
