The Story of Sara

I was born on the East End of Long Island surrounded by water; the Long Island Sound on one side and the Peconic Bay on the other, with the Atlantic ocean not too far away. Needless to say, I love seafood. My dad was a minister, and my two sisters and I were well-behaved minister’s kids. I probably picked up my penchant for performing while watching my dad in the pulpit every Sunday, or maybe my attorney mom in court. I do know that some of my first performances were singing songs and dancing for my dad’s parishoners when he’d take me on his nursing home visits. I also played the butterfly in the first grade play. I had to deliver the opening monologue. I distinctly remember peeking through the curtains as the entire elementary school took their seats and thinking, “Ah ha! Soon you will be in the palm of my hand!”

From there I performed in several local community theaters. The one I was most involved in was the North Fork Community Theater. I acted in several summer musicals (!) and also played Abigail Williams in “The Crucible”. It was great to have such a wonderful theater in my area. My high school’s theater program was wonderful, too. I performed in “Little Shop of Horrors”, “Noises Off” and played the Baker’s Wife in “Into the Woods”. I also played the trombone in the orchestra, band and jazz band and played in all kinds of All-County and Festival bands and sang in the show choir and chorus and then sang in the All-State and All-Eastern Choirs. Basically, I was a big theater and band/choir nerd.

I went to Yale after high school where I joined the all-women’s a cappella singing group, the New Blue. It was the first women’s organization on campus that formed in 1969 when Yale College finally went co-ed. I was really proud to be a part of it and I still count the women in the group as some of my closest friends. I also acted in as many shows as I could, most often in dining halls and the tiny theaters that are hidden around the Yale campus. My senior project was a short story that I adapted by Charlotte Perkins Gilman called “The Yellow Wallpaper” which was the perfect melding of my Theater Studies and Women’s Studies majors. Most of the time, I struggled with my studies and was challenged by the workload at Yale, but this play was by far a joy to work on and was a highlight of my time there.

After Yale, I headed out to San Francisco and enrolled in the Summer Training Congress at the American Conservatory Theater. I spent 8 weeks doing nothing but acting, improving, singing and dancing. It came as a true revelation after having spent four years writing papers about theater and approaching my future profession in a purely academic way. It was great to be in a conservatory setting. I really flourished and was asked into the Master’s Program at the end of the summer. I decided to stay and spent the next two years in San Francisco, with great classmates who have done so well like Omar Metwally (Munich, Rendition), Christopher Fitzgerald (Broadway’s Wicked and Young Frankenstein), Derek Cecil (Recount), Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls) and Elizabeth Banks (the class below us, 40 Year Old Virgin, W).

After grad school I moved to New York and have spent the years since acting in regional theaters all around the country, like the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Pioneer Theater, the American Repertory Theater, the Denver Center and lots of off- and off-off Broadway theaters in New York. I also have performed in films and on Law & Order and Conviction, another New York show.

With a baby on the horizon, I plan on cutting down on the regional theater, but my agents and I will continue to focus on New York TV and theater and hopefully more film work. I also plan to focus on on-camera commercials by working with Abrams Artists. Anything that will keep me close to my baby and husband!

That takes us up to today. I’ll keep you posted on future developments right here, so keep checking back!