A Theatre Artist
Served with a Spring of Satire and a Twist of Tragedy

Rani O’Brien excavates the human condition through irreverent play, activating rupture, embodiment, and risk as generative forces in performance. Rani cares deeply about the journey of artists and creates plosive theatrical works that challenge form while remaining grounded in collaboration, consent, and care.

 

Rani's directing practice frequently centers disability aesthetics, queer methodologies, and postdramatic forms, working across professional, academic, and experimental contexts.

 

Rani’s work includes La MaMa ETC, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Second City, Pacific Symphony, McCarter Theatre Center, The Lark, Theatre Aspen, The Tank, Boston University, Chicago College of Performing Arts, Howl! Happening, and The Vagrancy.

 

LORT credits include Twelfth Night (Associate Director, Kansas City Rep) and Skylight (SDCF Observer, McCarter Theatre). Select directing includes Those Who Remained (La MaMa), Stage Kiss, Mankind (Robert O’Hara), Mahsa’s Last Song (Isabelle Sanatdar Stevens), The Theory of Relativity, Three Sisters, Hamlet, Constellations, Candidate Confessions: A 2016 Cabaret, Break In, SciFiology: The Musical, Oh! The Magical Musical Places You’ll Go! (Pacific Symphony), The Big Funk, and Les Misérables. NYC-based devised and experimental work includes Modern Chalk Circle, A Midsummer Night’s DreamMachine, and Disconnected Touch.

 

Current projects include The Able Body Myth.

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Rani is an Associate Member of SDC, a graduate of The Second City Directing Program, holds an MFA in Directing from Boston University, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. Higher education, artistic leadership, and directing resumes available.

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