About
About
Rachelle is a South African performer and theater-maker currently based in New York. She recently graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Music (with honors & distinction) and a minor in Theater & Performance Studies.
In college she performed in musical theater classics including playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret and Cassie in A Chorus Line. Mostly though, she sought out new, emerging plays and musicals, discovering a passion for projects where she can be a creative collaborator as well as a performer. This led her to directing, devising, playwriting, songwriting, improv, and collaboration, which she now considers a key part of her identity as a performing artist.
These new works include Connor Lifson and K. Sid Zhang's multimedia play Moonchild (Narrator), Erika Chong Shuch's devised show For Now with Stanford TAPS, Stanford Repertory Theater's staged reading of Verdict, Stanford TheaterLab's Come Again (Molly), Stanford's 1st and 2nd annual '48 Hour Musicals' Still Love and True North, Katie Dragone's Lines (Gerry) and the world premiere of Scott Ordway's song cycle Evening Land. She also played BeeBee in the 1st staged workshop and New York developmental reading of new musical Huppet.Â
Rachelle has performed as a guest singer with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and twice in Brandon James Gwinn's A Night at the Piano Bar at the Bing Concert Hall Studio. She is a recipient of the Stanford Music Department's Musical Theater Artistry Award and the Rita Taylor Prize for vocal performance. Rachelle was a proud member of the Stanford Improvisers before graduating.
Her theatrical ventures have also included work as a vocal director, consulting director, deviser, improviser, songwriter, theater marketer, and the board president of the Stanford Light Opera Company.
She grew up in Pretoria, South Africa, and discovered her love for the theatre as a child playing Brigitta von Trapp in the 2014 International tour of The Sound of Music (Johannesburg dates), and Pepper in the first South African tour of Annie.