Sara Holdren is a director, writer, and teacher who was born in Charlottesville, Virginia and raised in the Blue Ridge foothills and, artistically, right here at Live Arts. She is the Pulitzer-nominated theater critic of New York magazine as well as the winner of the 2016-2017 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. She currently teaches in the directing department at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, and her recent directing work includes Faust (Heartbeat Opera), The Oresteia and Cymbeline (NYU Grad Acting), As You Like It (Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival), Three Sisters and Twelfth Night (Two River Theater), and, with her own theater collective Tiltyard, MIDSUMMER, an original Shakespearean adaptation last performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has been seeing and making shows at Live Arts since she was very small and has, at various times, acted, designed, directed, season programmed, graphic designed, built sets, hung lights, made lifelong friends, eaten pizza, and performed as an aerialist at the corner of 2nd and Water Street. She is thrilled to return to the Gibson Theater and to build something new with this community that she deeply loves.
The Caucasian Chalk Circle - Director
September 4, 2026
