About Sarah Marcus
Sarah is a Northampton-based theater artist, educator, producer, and mother. She is the proud recipient of a 2021 Assets for Artists/ValleyCreates Working Capital Grant, and since then has been working as an artist organizer/facilitator for Assets for Artists.
Sarah is also the co-director and co-founder of the Youth Performance Festival, now in its 6th year, a free opportunity for youth artists to create original performance pieces under the guidance of mentor artists. As a theater educator for 20 years, she has taught drama to children of all ages across the boroughs of New York City and, more recently, in workshops, classes and camps throughout Western Massachusetts.
In 2019, Sarah co-founded Play Incubation Collective (PIC), a hub for new play creation, which continues to hold works-in-progress arts salons open to the community, and provides long and short term residencies for playwrights and other theater artists to develop their work over an extended period.
As an actor, educator, and producer/facilitator, Sarah champions stories that lift up our collective humanity, that invite us to dive deeply into others’ inner lives, curiously exploring our flaws, quirks, and unspoken dreams. She passionate about shepherding new theatrical work into the world and celebrating process over product. How might our communities transform if the arts functioned not just as entertainment but as a valued community resource? How can we nurture and sustain the next generation of artists? Sarah's work engages with these questions and creates structures for locally sourced and supported performance.
Sarah is a graduate of Tufts University, where she was a member of the children’s theater troupe Traveling Treasure Trunk, and she received her M.F.A. in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Sarah has appeared as a performer locally in PIC’s Field Notes from a Feminist Theater Potluck, Invitation to the Dance, and Piedmont Plays, as well as Northampton's 24-hour play festival and Greenfield's Double Take Fringe Festival. Outside of Western Mass, she has created and performed work at the Emerging Artists Theatre NYC, Cleveland Public Theatre, NY International Fringe Festival, and HERE Arts Center, among others.
Selected Projects
Play Incubation Collective (PIC)
Play Incubation Collective, (PIC) the organization I co-founded, serves as a local launchpad for theatrical work at its earliest stage, and brings audiences into conversation with the artists. PIC has staged readings and salons in a variety of untraditional venues including parking lots, bars, churches, and apple orchards and covered a range of themes from indigenous healing to queer joy.
Youth Performance Festival
The Youth Performance Festival, a free program I run for youth artists ages 8-18, provides empowerment and mentorship to young artists creating original songs, dances, plays, videos and more. Through all of my work, I am dedicated to widening the canon of stories we hear and celebrating small moments of creative connection.
