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Emilie Whelan is a director, actor, and arts organizer whose work explores performance as a site of resistance and transformation. From 2006 to 2018, she was a core member of Cripple Creek Theater Company in New Orleans, a socially and politically engaged ensemble dedicated to accessible, justice-oriented theater. She directed and performed in over twenty productions, including The Cradle Will Rock, The Lily’s Revenge, Clybourne Park, We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay!, Balm in Gilead, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Enemy of the People, Waiting for Lefty, and Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi trilogy, staged across three Mardi Gras seasons.
Her New Orleans collaborations extended into the city’s music scene through projects with Aurora Nealand, Ratty Scurvics, and the Valparaiso Men’s Chorus. She also served on the leadership team of the New Orleans Fringe Festival, curating a carnival-centric international festival featuring more than seventy performances each year. Emilie earned her MFA in Directing from UC San Diego, co-founded The DISTILLERY Artist Residency at the Contemporary Arts Center, and has trained with ensembles Hand2Mouth, TEETH, and Pig Iron. Based in the Bay Area since 2019, she now works regularly with Shotgun Players, is an Associate Artist with Oakland Theater Project, and serves on the leadership team with West Edge Opera - championing new opera commissions for a contemporary American repertoire. A mother and a proudly working-class resident of El Sobrante (“the leftovers”), Emilie is drawn to the most sensitive places of the heart—those that grow in abundance where resources are bare-bone but honest. Her theatrical work continually circles themes of desire, reckoning, and hysterics. A former elementary public school teacher and a former university professor, she continues to center education, collaboration, and creative citizenship. 
Upcoming: Spring 2026: Continuity: A Play in Six Takes, Bess Wohl, Shotgun Players Summer 2026: West Edge Opera Summer Festival Photos Courtesy of Cory Weaver |