About

Sammy Zeisel is a theater director and filmmaker originally from Bethesda, MD. He recently completed his MFA in Directing at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University where he was awarded the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize in directing. He is currently the directing fellow at Rattlestick Theater.

As a theater director, Sammy specializes in contemporary re-imaginings of classics, formally inventive new plays, and experimental solo performance. His work tends to be site-responsive, immersive, and/or participatory, engaged as much with narrative as with the ritual of live performance itself.

At Yale, Sammy developed and directed new plays The Figs by Doug Robinson and rent free by Danielle Stagger, as well as his own adaptation of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and Annie Baker's translation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.

Before moving to the East Coast for graduate school, Sammy lived and worked in Chicago where select credits included the Chicago premieres of The Late Wedding and Home Invasion by Christopher Chen; Meatball Séance, and other participatory solo work of performance artist John Michael (WINNER: Best Solo Performance Ottawa Fringe Festival); and new plays by playwrights Beth Hyland, Laura Winters, and others. 

Sammy has assisted directors including Les Waters, Lee Sunday Evans, Jessica Thebus, Meredith McDonough, Michael Patrick Thornton, John Vreeke, Devon DeMayo, and Marti Lyons, and worked at institutions including Steppenwolf Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and The Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is an alumnus of the Actors Theatre of Louisville Directing Apprenticeship and Northwestern University where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in theater.

As a filmmaker, Sammy tends to make intimate character studies which playfully blur the line between comedy and tragedy. His short films have screened at festivals across the country, including his most recent short Clambake which screened at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and his self-written short Cheese Shop which won Best Director at the Windy City International Film Festival and Audience Choice Award at Indieworks. 

Sammy lives in Brooklyn, NYC