January 17, 2022
Photo 1: Playwright Edward Albee, Director Emily Mann, and baby Assistant Director Marisol in technical rehearsals for Albee’s Me, Myself & I at McCarter Theatre Center, 2007-2008 season. Photo 2: Baby Assistant Director Marisol, Producing Director Mara Isaacs, and Lighting Designer Kenneth Posner in technical rehearsals for Edward Albee’s Me, Myself & I at McCarter Theatre Center, 2007-2008 season.
Big thanks to McCarter Theatre Center Production Stage Manager Cheryl Mintz for sharing these amazing photos from my time at McCarter Theatre Center. During the 2007-2008 season, I had the privilege and delight of working with the folks shown above, as well as directors Daniel Fish (Tartuffe), Mary Zimmerman (Argonautika), and Rebecca Taichman (Sleeping Beauty Wakes). These memories warmed my chilly little mid-January heart.
December 12, 2021
I’ve had such a blast playing Marisol the Electrician in Theatre Horizon’s Holiday Spectacular. What a joy and a privilege to return to be a part of reopening the theater with our first performances since the pandemic shutdown in March 2020. This was a fantastic crew of silly, funny, absurdly talented humans. See more pictures on the Theatre Horizon website, here. HAPPY HOLIDAYS, friends. And here’s hoping for a more healthy, peaceful, joyful, and just new year.
December 11, 2021
Look whose happy muppet face is on flags on 42nd street, making art with babies! This wonderful photo was taken during a developmental workshop performance of Spellbound Theatre’s Shakespeare’s Stars at the New Victory Theater in January 2020. The show was supposed to be part of the New Victory’s 2020-2021 season. Here’s hoping that we can get back into the room making theater with babies someday very soon!
November 6, 2021
Oh, what a treat to take part in Spiral Q’s Peoplehood rally and parade! I’ve admired Spiral Q’s work for years, and this was my first opportunity to attend and participate in the Peoplehood. Spiral Q has experienced so much adversity and loss over the last few months, including a devastating flood in their archive and studio space, and the theft of their van. In addition to marching in the Peoplehood, I’m delighted to have been able to make monetary contributions to support Spiral Q’s vital work here in West Philadelphia. Learn more about Spiral Q here, and consider becoming a donor!
October 30, 2021
Shakespeare in Clark Park will host our first annual Hurly Burly Halloween fundraiser tomorrow evening at Nine Hostage Arts! Join us for snacks, beverages, and spooky Shakespeare scenes in which YOU can become the star!
October 21, 2021
It’s going down in Norristown TONIGHT! An opportunity for any and all artists in the Norristown area to come present their poetry, music, spoken word, and more! We can’t wait to meet you and experience your artistry <3.
October 11, 2021
It was an utter privilege and delight to play the role of Nina in Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s fall 2021 production of AIRNESS by Chelsea Marcantel. The production ran September 16-October 10, 2021 in Bloomsburg, PA.
Sept 13, 2021
AIRNESS by Chelsea Marcantel opens September 16 at Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. Get tickets at www.bte.org.
August 2021
Shakespeare in Clark Park’s 2021 season ran July 3-August 29, 2021, with an unprecedented program of three distinct productions running in three different parks in three neighborhoods of Philadelphia. To learn more about our season, visit www.shakespeareinclarkpark.org.
July 2021
In 2021, I’ve spent most spring and summer Saturdays representing Shakespeare in Clark Park at the Clark Park Farmers Market. Come say hello from 10am-2pm!
June 28, 2021
Today, I took Catbear on a hike! Check out our adventures for Spellbound Theatre’s “Anywhere with Catbear” series, available here.
June 26, 2021
This weekend, we wrapped up a year+ long fellowship at Target Margin Theater in Brooklyn. I’ve loved getting to know, and play and create and experiment and eat with this wonderful crew of artists. Thank you, TMT, for supporting us and holding us through this incredibly strange, challenging time.
May 7, 2021
In this New Victory Arts Break, join me in crafting a personalized flip letter to document a conversation with a beloved family member or friend!
April 16, 2021
In this New Victory Arts Break, join me in creating an interactive Local Landmark Story!
March 20, 2021
It has been an absolute delight co-creating a brand new, completely remote piece of theater with the abundantly talented Peay family. Check out their one-night-only Art House performance through Theatre Horizon TONIGHT! Find your tickets at www.theatrehorizon.org.
Feb 9, 2021
Yesterday, BIPOC in TYA (@bipocintya) released “Anti-Racist and Anti-Oppressive Futures for Theatre for Young Audiences: An Interactive Guide” — an invitation for the field of TYA to answer the calls for racial justice and transformation. We encourage you to read and interact with the guide now, and commit yourself or your organization to work through its contents. You can access the guide by clicking on the image above, or visiting https://www.tyausa.org/arao-guide/.
December 2020
In the summer of 2020, I connected with a group of brilliant BIPOC TYA professionals—Min Khang, Khalia Davis, Rudy Ramirez, Tiffany Maltos, and Shavonne Coleman—to envision a movement for equity, inclusion, representation, justice, and belonging for BIPOC working in the TYA field. By the end of the year, we had convened weekly affinity group meetings via Zoom, bringing together TYA artists and administrators from across the country to share, strategize, commiserate, collaborate, listen, learn, and share in community. At the end of the year, we saw it fit to commemorate this growing community in a video to be shared with the broader community of industry professionals gathered for the TYA/USA digital conference. I organized and edited the video above, with script by Rudy Ramirez and original music by Min Khang. Enjoy!
September 2020
One unexpected delight of the last year has been the opportunity to create children’s media in a whole new way— an episodic, interactive, Zoom-based show for kids called Adventure Players Live! I was part of the founding ensemble of talented actors, writers, and producers who embarked on this journey together in the spring of 2020. In just a few months, we had performed for children all over the USA—and as far away as Ireland!
May 26, 2020
In this New Victory Arts Break video, you, too, can learn to talk like a carnival barker and convince just about anyone to stop and check out your special performance act. Enjoy!
April 27, 2020
I have REALLY been missing visiting my beloved NYC public school students in my role as a teaching artist with the New Victory Theater. Luckily, the New Vic has made a quick, innovative pivot to provide families across the city, the country, and the world with free, accessible digital programming in a wide array of art forms. Check out my New Victory Arts Break video on clowning and takes!
May 26, 2019
This Wednesday evening marks the end of the four-month run of the In SEAtu series at Capitol Cider.
Wednesday, May 29
6pm and 7:30pm
Capitol Cider
We wrap up the In SEAtu project with a sharp, satirical look at cannabis culture, history, gentrification and the racial inequities in the burgeoning cannabis industry.
You won’t want to miss the provocative culmination of this four-part series, all for the love of Seattle’s Rain & Coffee & Salmon & Weed
Tickets available on a sliding scale at
April 18, 2019
I am very honored and proud to have my short play, En Casas Abandonadas, presented in staged reading at UHeights this weekend. Play Your Part* Seattle is a wonderful new theater company in town doing ITS part to bring exciting new works of theater to the Seattle audience, while raising funds for wonderful non-profit organizations offering social services, advocacy and more. Proceeds from this evening of short plays, called “Where Is Home?,” will benefit the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. I am deeply excited by Play Your Part*’s vision for what theater can be and how we can forge connections to make change in the broader world.
Learn more about Play Your Part* Seattle and purchase your tickets here.
April 15, 2019
Uncompromisingly biting, playful and true. We have made it through half of the In SEAtu series—our satirical, celebratory take on four Seattle icons and the rich, complex stories behind Rain, Coffee, Salmon and Weed.
This month, we are deep into creation and rehearsal process for In SEAtu: SALMON, which will premiere at Capitol Cider on Monday, April 29 at 6pm and 7:30pm.
The bouffons will take a look at the history of colonization, industrialization, and indigenous peoples’ water and fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest region and beyond. A tale of sacrifice and first foods, treaties made and broken, climate change and culverts, pipelines, protectors, and “Frankenfish.” Oh my! Come play, laugh, learn, weep, and walk away with a new understanding of our region’s most revered fish.
April 4, 2019
Here at Home, my delightful solo red nose show, opens in Seattle TONIGHT at 7:30pm and runs tomorrow at 9:30pm and Saturday at 7:30pm as part of the SpringShot Festival at 18th and Union. Tickets are available here.
March 22, 2019
I recently returned from an 8-day project with Clowns Without Borders, working with migrants from southern Mexico, Hondura, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan who are stuck at the border in Tijuana. Read more about the project here.
February 4, 2019
The bouffons have landed in Seattle to observe and mimic foibles of human behavior. Allergic to apathy, they challenge politeness, expose uncomfortable truths, and acknowledge the beauty and tragic histories of our beloved icons.
They have felt the drizzle, sniffed that coffee aroma, gorged on Omega3s, and splendored in the grass. Join them as they celebrate:
In SEAtu: Rain – Weds, Feb 27 @ 6pm; Thurs, Feb 28 @ 5:30pm
In SEAtu: Coffee – Mon, Mar 25 @ 6pm and 7:30pm (coming soon)
In SEAtu: Salmon – Mon, Apr 29 @ 6pm and 7:30pm (coming soon)
In SEAtu: Weed – Weds, May 29 @ 6pm and Thursday, May 30 @ 6pm (coming soon)
The Ballast Bar at Capitol Cider
818 East Pike Street Seattle, WA
Stupidity is infinite but seating for the show IS NOT! So go getcha tickets right here, right now!
February 4, 2019
I am thrilled to be performing in Silver Kite Theater Company’s production of “Boxes,” a new work of theater devised by an intergenerational ensemble of performer-creators. Click here for more information about the show, the cast, and where you can catch us in action beginning in March 2019.
December 26, 2018
The Up Close Festival is a hit! If you missed Program A last week, never fear—our run at the New Ohio continues tomorrow, 12/27, with a program of new works for the family, and the return of Program A audience favorite, PIZZA RAT!
Read on for glowing reviews from MotherhoodLater, NewYorkTheater, Hi! Drama, and blogger Libby Emmons.
Then get your tickets here.
"I found this 60 minute immersive performance, directed by Peter Musante and Summer Shapiro, to be fantastic… Marisol Rosa-Shapiro’s “Velveeta Underground: A Pizza Rat’s Quest To Save Cheesy Beet Poetry (Part 1)” was definitely my favorite act. It’s pretty hard not to be enamored by a rat with a long tail writing rhyming poetry. I was impressed with her ability to improv as she asked audience members questions. Warning: you may leave craving pizza.” – Lainie Gutterman, Motherhood Later
“It reminded me what there is to love about theater, and how I can fall in love with it anew.” – Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater
“[The] opening secrecy made the show feel like a rarity, something special, barely accessible, a hole in the ground that leads to a wonderland…The kids really seemed to love it, because the show addressed them as full participants, fully fledged New Yorkers, and acknowledged and respected their burgeoning wings.” – Libby Emmonds
December 15, 2018
I am thrilled to announce that I will be a Jim Rye Fellow at this year’s International Performing Arts for Youth conference in Philadelphia. The fellowship will support my attendance and mentorship at this vital gathering of artists, producers, presenters and leaders in the field of Theater for Young Audiences. Hooray! Read more about the Jim Rye Fellowship, and about my fellow Fellows, here.
December 3, 2018
I am offering my first independently-produced workshop for adult performers in Seattle, next Sunday, December 9 from 3pm-6pm at Theater Puget Sound.
In this workshop, we will explore the direct, playful, unabashed, satirical play of the bouffon--an omniscient demigod returned to earth to mimic and mock the foibles of human behavior.
Born of the pedagogy of internationally-renowned French theater teacher Jacques Lecoq, the bouffon style of play releases the actor's inhibitions, by encouraging the performer to "puff" themselves beyond the bounds of naturalism and politeness, and to delve into subject matter away from which other creators might shy. The style is based on the Satyr plays of Ancient Greece, the Feast of Fools, and early Commedia dell'Arte.
Over the course of our three hours together, we will explore mimicry and mockery, collaborative game creation, physical play, mime, mask work, musicality, and the beginnings of costume design. This survey will give the participants a sense of the style employed in the upcoming production of "In SEAtu: Rain & Coffee & Salmon & Weed," premiering in Seattle in early 2019.
Tickets for this workshop are available on a sliding scale, from $15-$30. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Reserve your spot here.
December 1, 2018
This Saturday, Seattle actor, director and writer Jose Amador and I will play a series of characters in a sock puppet epic called The Sock of Love, written by my dear friend Erin Shafkind. The show will also be a kind of housewarming party for the home that Erin and her partner Will have rotated and reimagined. It promises to be a silly, playful, beautiful evening of storytelling, music and community.
November 19, 2018
I’ll be in New York City for several weeks this winter and I’m excited to be a part of what promises to be a very special festival of intimate theater works for the whole family at The New Ohio Theatre in the West Village. Get your tickets here.
November 2018
I had such a wonderful experience with More Than Maria, that I jumped at the chance to play with Play Your Part, yet again! Come see us play silly Russian spies speaking in silly Russian accents. More information here.
October 25, 2018
I’m thrilled that George and I will be at camp together again this summer—this time in beautiful Port Townsend, WA. Learn more about Centrum’s education programs, here.
October 24, 2018
I’m jazzed to be a part of the HYPERCUT ensemble for Andrew Schneider’s AFTER at On the Boards, here in Seattle. More info here.
October 14, 2018
I will make my Seattle acting debut in “More Than Maria,” an evening of several short plays produced as a fundraiser for survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
See Sean Airhart’s wonderful photos from this production here.
October 8, 2018
Last weekend, I participated in Princeton University’s women alumnae conference, SheRoars, both as a performer and as a workshop facilitator. It was delightful to perform as my clown, Princess Mildred, for a receptive audience of alumnae, and to facilitate a workshop on Practicing Playfulness for forty wonderful, willing participants. What a treat!