Sarah Rasmussen took the helm at McCarter in 2020 and is thrilled to carry on its long tradition of championing new voices onstage. Prior to McCarter, Rasmussen was Artistic Director of the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis, where in recognition of her leadership she was named Star Tribune’s Artist of the Year. Rasmussen also served as Resident Director for Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Black Swan Lab new work development program and Head of MFA Directing at the University of Texas at Austin. She is an alum of the Women’s Project, SoHo Rep., and Lincoln Center Directing Labs. She has directed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie, Dallas Theater Center, Actors Theater of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, and will be bringing McCarter’s Ride the Cyclone to Arena Stage. She has developed new work with Playwrights’ Center, the O’Neill, the Lark, and many others. She was an inaugural recipient of the BOLD Leadership Circle grant and is also the recipient of a Princess Grace Award, an Ivey Award for Overall Excellence, and Drama League and Fulbright fellowships. As a director, she loves inclusive projects that have a sense of humor, sublime visual theatricality and strong roles for women – both onstage and behind the scenes.

In eight seasons at OSF: Producing Assistant, Community; Festival Producer; Director of Repertory Producing; and Lead producer for nine shows in four seasons. Directing: a reading of King Margaret by Tira Palmquist (5 Directors, 5 Plays), Pearl Sings the Blues by Vivia Font (Midnight Project), OSF Presents: Fill in the Blank by Claudia Alick. Other theatres: BOLD Associate Producer and Off Site Season Producer, Alliance Theatre. Directing: the ripple the wave that carried me home (People’s Light Theatre); Breakfast at the Bookstore by Lisa Langford (Ashland New Plays Festival); Shutter Sisters by Mansa Ra (Old Globe); Downstairs by Theresa Rebeck, An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Actor’s Express); Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan, adapted by Theroun D’arcy Patterson with music by Eugene Russell III (Alliance Theatre, Theatre for the Very Young); Eve’s Song by Patricia Ione Lloyd (workshop, The Playwrights Realm); God, Man and Devil by Jacob Gordin (Target Margin Theatre); Pete the Girl by Charity Henson-Ballard (Rising Circle/Culture Project Women’s Center Stage; Jump Jim Crow by Jesse Cameron Alick, music and lyrics by Justin Levine (Subjective Theater Company); Cold Keener by Zora Neale Hurston (Target Margin Theatre). Awards: 2008/2010 Women’s Project Lab. Van Lier Directing Fellow 2009, Second Stage Theatre. Education: MFA, Directing, Brown University/Trinity Rep; BFA, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.

Jaimee Harmon-Taboni (she/her) is an actor, educator, and theater professional originally from Buffalo, NY. A proud SUNY Buffalo graduate, she currently works as a Teaching Artist, Education Outreach Assistant, and Executive Administrative Assistant for McCarter Theatre Center. Jaimee is passionate about the possibilities theater creates to teach empathy, compassion, and essential life skills, and is excited to continue to learn how to promote these possibilities through artistic leadership.