Sarah Connolly is an NYC-based theater director dedicated to fostering creative environments rooted in generosity and openness. A graduate of Wesleyan University with Honors in Comparative Politics and Civic Engagement, her academic background instilled in her a passion for telling stories that speak to the political and social moment through which we are living. She loves to excavate and dissect new plays, distilling them down to their most essential form and creating productions grounded in strong acting and clear world-building. Her work often blends humor and intimacy to both entertain and subvert expectations, challenging audiences to ask new questions and reflect on a piece long after the curtain falls.

In May, Connolly will direct Mr. Garfunkel by Scott Roberts for Sound Bites, Theatre Now’s Ten-Minute Musical Festival. Other recent projects include For(e)bear (Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research), A Change of Air (Masquerade Theatre), The Betrothed (The Tank), Romeo and Juliet (Boomerang Theatre Company), Running After Bobby (Ensemble Studio Theatre), The Glass Between Stars (The Tank), Landis and the Bear (Samuel French Annual Short Play Festival) and Mouse Trap (New York Theatre Festival). At Wesleyan, her production of Legally Blonde: The Musical received the J.P. Adler Memorial Award for Student Theatre. When not in the midst of a production process, you’ll find her directing for various short play series such as Serials NYC and Living Radio. In June 2024, she was appointed to the Board of Directors for The Facing Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on bringing communities together through storytelling and live performance. She is also writing and developing her first full-length play, Immaculate.

In September 2019, Connolly began training as an actor in The Actor’s Gym Studio, in order to develop her ability to understand and communicate with actors. After a year and a half of acting training, she began assisting the studio director, David Perlow, with noting and staging actors and eventually began directing her own scenes. In 2022, alongside Perlow, she co-founded The Mandala Series, a program designed to turn remarkably strong scene work in the studio into full productions, which she ran through the end of 2023. Her experiences creating and facilitating these presentations inspired her to found Patchworks, her own NYC-based theater production company dedicated to patching new works together from collective imaginations. Patchworks’ first production, The Glass Between Stars, premiered at The Tank in March 2024. In addition to her directing work, Connolly has served as a producer, stage manager, props assistant, production manager, box office manager, carpenter, and Covid Compliance Officer on various NYC productions. She believes that her experiences on all different sides of the production process make her a more well-rounded leader with a deep understanding of the value of every individual involved in bringing a production to life.