“Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it’s accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves to the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves into a story where we see the world from the bottom up, or through another’s eyes or heart.” — Sue Monk Kidd
Chelsea Marcantel is an LA-based writer, director, and collaborator.
Reared by Cajuns in southwest Louisiana, Chelsea has lived and worked among the peoples of the Midwest, Appalachia, the Mid-Atlantic, and now the West Coast. In 2016, she completed a Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Her plays, which have been produced worldwide, include Airness (2018 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award), Everything is Wonderful, Tiny Houses (2018 Roe Green Award), Ladyish, Devour, and the online theatrical experience Citizen Detective (NY Times Critic’s Pick).
As a member of the Walt Disney Animation Story Trust from 2022-2023, Chelsea collaborated on such films as STRANGE WORLD (Creative Leadership Credit) and WISH (Creative Leadership Credit), in addition to films and series that have not yet been released. She has also developed features and series with Warner Brothers Animation, The Weinstein Company, and other Hollywood storytelling outfits.
Chelsea has been entrusted with teaching young minds at Virginia Intermont College and Emory & Henry College, and loved every minute of it. As a writer, she is extremely interested in humans as small-group primates, and what happens when the rules and value systems of our chosen groups cease to serve us. She reads a lot of books, watches a lot of documentaries, and listens to a lot of podcasts. Chelsea is an enthusiastic member of The Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild, and runs with a kick-ass group of activists called The Kilroys.
Chelsea’s current theatrical projects include several new plays and commercial musical projects, as well as writing the book for the original musical The Monster, for which she and her collaborators won a 2021 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre.
Special Skills: stalking celebrity chefs, making killer playlists, taking photos of her dog, defending the oxford comma, and overestimating her own proficiency with yoga.
“Because a work does not aim at reproducing natural appearances it is not, therefore, an escape from life — but may be a penetration into reality… a expression of the significance of life, a stimulation to greater effort in living.” ― Henry Moore
