Directing
Winner: 2017 TITAN Award
I like my plays vital and visceral, I cherish transforming language to movement, and I love to help actors shine.
”Please thank Erin for her keen direction. You have given me a very special gift and I am most grateful.” —Daryl Roth
References | Reels | Reviews
FSM rehearsal during the BAPF
photo by Jim Norrena
Hunting Love
photo by Karla Hargrave
The Clean House
photo by mellopix.com
Good Person of Szechuan
photo by Erin Merritt
Click Clack Moo
photo by Joshua Posamentier
Brahman/i: A One-Hijra Stand-Up Comedy Show
photo by Pak Han
Cat in the Hat
photo by Joshua Posamentier
Pericles
photo by Elizabeth Allen
Lord of the Flies
photo by Elizabeth Allen
Selected Directing Experience (download full PDF)
AWARDS & FUNDING
2017 TITAN Award
2017 Shotgun Players Bridging the Gap Funding
Theatre Bay Area CA$H funding 2000, 2006, 2020
***Winner, Top Ten Productions of 2005, Oakland Tribune
**Winner, Top Ten Productions of 2002, SF Examiner
† World premiere
* Regional premiere
Related Experience
Producer (see Producing & Arts Administration Consultant page)
Adaptor/Translator (see Adaptations page)
Actor 1991 – 2005 (Download PDF)
Other Representative Projects:
Researcher Cleopatra Blu-Ray (added-value Docs) Felt Films for FOX Searchlight, LA, CA
Brecht coach Doing Good SF Mime Troupe, SF, CA
Dramaturg (before NNPN Rolling Premiere) Grounded Bay Area Playwrights Festival, SF, CA
Production Dramaturg/Brecht coach Arturo Ui Unconditional Theatre, SF, CA
Production Dramaturg/Russian coach Uncle Vanya Shotgun Players, Berkeley
Assistant Director A Steady Rain Central Standard Theatre, KC, MO
Asst Dir/SM/Dramaturg Arturo Ui Bay Package Prods, SF CA
Stage Manager 1996 – 1999 (substitute SM: var. concerts) Berkeley Symphony Orchestra
Stage Manager 1990 – 1991 Bar None ODAAT Productions, SF CA
Fight Choreographer
Woman’s Will: Good Person (2008), As You Like It (2004), Lord of the Flies (2004), Othello (2003), Comedy of Errors (2001), Merchant of Venice (2001)
Other Theaters: TheatreFIRST, Berkeley: Making Noise Quietly; Signal Theatre, SF: Our Lady of Fatima; UMKC: Drums in the Night; Palo Alto High School: Big Love and The Fantasticks; California Shakespeare Theater Summer with Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar
Coriolanus, Erin in title role
Photo by Pietro Calogero
Drums in the Night, UMKC Dept of Theater
Photo by Jeff Rumens
Telling: KC
The Telling Project. Photo by Erin Merritt
Education & Training
BA Theatre, Reed College (Phi Beta Kappa)
Thesis: Logical Brecht: what he did, why he did it, how we do it.*
Teaching/Curriculum Development
Russell Blackwood/numerous teachers | SF Shakes Fest/Berkeley/Oakland USDs
Directing/Playwriting
Craig Clinton | Reed College
Verse
Dakin Matthews/Julian López-Morillas | California Shakespeare Theater
Theatre History
Gail Chugg | California Shakespeare Theater
Craig Clinton | Reed College
Stage Combat
Richard Lane & Bob Borwick | Academy of the Sword
Michael Cawelti | California Shakespeare Theater
Tony Simotes | Shakespeare & Co., Massachusetts
J.R. Beardsley | Drama Studio Berkeley
Acting Technique
Tony Taccone | California Shakespeare Theater
Kathleen Worley | Reed
Voice
Penny Kreitzer | California Shakespeare Theater
Andrea Haring, Ariel Bock | Shakespeare & Co.
Movement
Art Manke | California Shakespeare Theater
Karen Beaumont, Susan Dibble | Shakespeare & Co.
Viewpoints
Ellen Lauren | SITI Company at Fools Fury, SF
Butoh Dance
Anton Adasinsky | Derevo, St. Petersburg, Russia
Paige Sorvillo | Temescal Arts Center
*used as text for coursework at Reed College 1990 - 2013