I first met Sarah Rasmussen twenty years ago when she was a junior at Sisseton High School. I was reporting on her production of Alice in Wonderland staged in the family basement. She directed a cast made up of her brothers, friends and other kids from the community. Two decades later she's preparing to take over as the artistic director of the Jungle Theater, one of the top theaters in the Twin Cities.
After graduating from Sisseton High School, she earned degrees in theater and English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. She received her master of fine arts from the University of California San Diego. She’s currently associate professor and head of the MFA directing program at the University of Texas at Austin. Along with directing plays for various Twin Cities theater companies including the Jungle, she’s also directed and developed new work at the Humana Festival, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, La Jolla Playhouse, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Black Swan Lab and more. She starts her new job on July 1.
Sarah Rasmussen joined Dakota Midday and discussed how her experiences in Sisseton prepared her for a career in theater.