Theatre

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about

Emily Rankin is a director, actor, and artist who has been an active theatre maker for over twenty-five years. Her training began as an Assistant Director under the mentorship of Adam Hester, then chair of Abilene Christian University's theatre department. Emily assisted Adam in over twenty productions, and worked as an assistant to other faculty members at ACU for nearly ten years. 

After receiving her BFA in Theatre Directing and Psychology, she worked extensively in Austin, TX as an actor, director, stage manager, and props designer, regularly working with various companies, including The Hidden Room, Penfold, En Route Productions, and Present Company Theatre.

In 2018 she relocated to Santa Fe, NM, where she continues to work in Production, Fabrication, and as an actor. She’s been a regular fixture in the theatre community, working with companies like the Santa Fe Playhouse, where she twice served as interim production manager, Ironweed, Almost Adults, and Blue Raven. She is a company member of Incite Shakespeare Company and Santa Fe Classic Theater. 

​In 2025, she began serving as the Artistic Director of the New Mexico Actors Lab, directing two productions, Bike America by Mike Lew, and How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel. The rest of her inaugural season included A Subtle Kind of Murder, an original play by Santa Fe playwright Dale Dunn, Cowboy Mouth by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith, and The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson. Under her leadership, The Actors Lab increased attendance and nearly doubled its donations in her first year. Her second season will feature Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector, The Drowning Girls by Beth Graham, Charlie Tomlinson, & Daniela Vlaskalic, Three Tall Women by Edward Albee, Persephone, Baby, an original play by Melanie Godsey, and Lunar Eclipse by Donald Margulies.

As an actor, she most recently appeared as Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Santa Fe Classic Theatre, Grace in Grace: Stories by Scott Harrison, produced with Ironweed, and as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Incite Shakespeare Company.