KATE BERGSTROM 

 

Current​​

• It's A Wonderful Life: The Radio Play at Alabama Shakespeare Theatre, December 2022

• Unspeakable, a podcast with SPOKE Media, 2021-present

• Alive & Well by Erin Courtney, a short film with Houselight Productions, 2022

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Recent​​

• Letters You Will Not Get, a world premiere opera composed by Kirsten Volness, at American Opera Projects + Irondale Arts July 2022

• The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow at St. Louis Rep, March 2022

• freeicecream.net with Martim Galvão and Miller Puckette at Counterpulse and ThoughtworksArts, May 2022

• Economics Lab co-founder with Jaynie Saunders Tiller at New Georges

• Is Edward Snowden Single? by Kate Cortesi at The New Ohio, Fall 2021 with The Pool

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Upcoming​​​​​​

• Oh To Be Pure Again by Kira Rockwell, World Premiere at Actor's Express, 2023

• You Can't Hide From Yourself by Erin Courtney, Director at Playwrights Horizon's SoundStage 

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"We couldn’t be more excited to kick off the New Year by bringing back this fun and exciting comedy adventure under the direction of Kate Bergstrom — a vibrant and visionary voice in modern theatre, ” 

-Hana S. Sharif

 The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis Augustin Family Artistic Director

 

"Kate Bergstrom is a visionary, truly, but a visionary with a contagious sense of humor and a pulsating, enormous heart. Such a combination is incredibly rare and beautiful, which is how I would describe Kate's work. Her insightful reading of classic plays is always enlivened by innovative and surprising staging, and her work with living writers is equally thrilling. Kate's brilliant, idiosyncratic productions always delight and amaze, and she is a joy to have in the rehearsal hall as well."  

-Curt Columbus

 Trinity Rep Arthur P. Solomon and Sally E. Lapides Artistic Director

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ABOUT: As a director, I stand apart making inviting, heart-filled and inquisitive rehearsal rooms that celebrate playful collaboration. By leading my process with safety and care, I help pieces come to life through innovative dramaturgy, experimentation, and inquiry. I create colorful, idiosyncratic and tender reckonings with crises where story is buoyed by the strange, the unusual, and the side-splitting.  I’m particularly interested in retooling the stories we’ve built, destroyed, and reconsidered on our stages as a means for broader social change. I love shaping the way we meet and make our present by confronting  the past to redefine the future. I love to earn hope in a theatrical event. I inspire revision, critical re-consideration and reckoning by leading with regeneration as purpose. I make soil of old narratives, old systems, to build the new. 

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BIO: Kate Bergstrom is a CA-born non-binary,femme-presenting director, creator, and culture shaper. They direct mostly for theatre, but also for audio, film, and immersive narrative work. A passionate supporter of great artists, they also work as a creative producer, new play whisperer, and perfomer. Now residing in NYC, their work has been seen regionally at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (THE 39 STEPS), Trinity Rep (A CHRISTMAS CAROL), Marin Theatre Company (NOURA by Heather Raffo), Cleveland Play House (Workshop GALILEE 34 by Eleanor Burgess), LATC X We The Women (FILL FILL FILL FILL FILL FILL FILL by Steph Del Rosso), Opera San Diego (OSB), Music Academy of the West (THE SHAKESPEARE SALON), REDCAT (WHOLED), LACMA and more. In NYC, they have directed work at Ars Nova (HOTBOX), The Bushwick Starr (Workshop: ON THE Y-AXIS), Rattlestick Theater (Workshop: RED BIKE), New Dramatists (Workshop: ORANGE BALLOON by Erin Courtney), JACK( h0t club FISHXSEAFOOD), Dixon Place (ANNE FRANK LIVE AT THE PLAZA by Evan Horwitz) + Access Theatre (Workshop: THESE WALLS) and more. They are a proud union member of SDC, New Georges Affiliated Artist, Ojai Playwrights Conference Affiliated artist, and member of the intermedia performance group, h0t club. They've whispered new work everywhere from Playwrights Center to Curious Theatre Company (Denver) to CouterPulse.

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Central Coast BroadwayWorld.com’s 2016 Person to Watch + 2017 Best Director. Founding Artistic Director of On The Verge Summer Repertory Company in Santa Barbara  & Explosions From the Other Canon @ Brown.MFA, Brown/Trinity.

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Kate is also critic at Rhode Island School of Design and co-teaches  "Performing the Internet" at NYU + The New School. They currently hold a guest lectureship appointment at UC Santa Barbara and UC Los Angeles and help develop strategic anti-racist and/or new economy action plans for a number of constituents.