Holly L. Derr is a writer, director, and professor of theater specializing in the Viewpoints & Composition, the performance of gender, and applied theater history. Her most recent production, The Metal Children, by Adam Rapp, ran at the University of California at Riverside.
Originally from Dallas, TX, she holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University and a BA in Theater from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was the founding Artistic Director of SKT Inc., a New York based not-for-profit theater, and has directed new plays for Big Dance Theater’s Play Play Faster Faster Festival and the PlayPenn New Play Development Festival. Holly has served on the faculties of Marlboro College and Smith College, and has taught and directed at the American Repertory Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, The Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California at Riverside, and Chapman University.
Holly also recently directed As Long as Fear Can Turn to Wrath at Son of Semele in Los Angeles, presented her original script, American Medea, at the Warner Loughlin Studios and Ensemble Studio Theater/LA, and directed Rimers of Eldritch at Chapman, where she also taught Acting Styles. Favorite past projects include In the Penal Colony, Speak, The Time of Your Life (as a musical adaptation), The Front Page, and new plays by Gregory S. Moss, Ann Marie Healy, Timothy Braun, and Colin Denby Swanson. Holly is also a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer and a blogger for Ms., where she writes about theater, culture, and reproductive rights. You can contact her at directorhollylderr@gmail.com.
