Upcoming:
Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure by La Daniella a new puppet musical about a mermaid living in the Gowanus Canal at The Bushwick Starr this winter (February 2026)
Deliver Us! by James La Bella as a part of Brown University’s Writing is Live Festival.
The Ratcracker the third annual crowning of the Rat King at Rattlestick Theater’s winter fundraising party (December 2026)
Recent:
Abby Paj Tries to Stay Alive with the Neo-Futurists in Chicago —a solo show by Neo-Futurist ensemble member Abby Pajakowski about prepper culture and depression (September 2025)
CAT co-created with Gaby FeBland a work in progress showing of a feral puppet deconstruction of a certain popular musical. Presented as culmination of Directing Fellowship at Rattlestick Theater (July 2025)
Tremolo by Regan Moro a workshop and reading of Regan’s epic re-imagining of The Seagull featuring a multi-generational cast of queer women. Presented through Fault Line’s Irons in the Fire series (June 2025)
Gods of Mercy by Joshua Owen a workshop and reading of a new play about paying attention at the end of the world featuring Timothy Busfield, Constance Schulman, Ethan Dubin, and Rebeca Robles (April 2025)
About
Sammy Zeisel is a theater director, filmmaker, and teacher based in Brooklyn, NYC. He received his MFA in Directing at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University where he was awarded the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize for excellence in directing. He was the directing fellow at Rattlestick Theater 2024/25 and is currently a Lecturer in the Design and Playwriting Departments at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
As a theater director, Sammy specializes in contemporary re-imaginings of classics, formally inventive new plays, and experimental solo performance. His work tends to be site-responsive, immersive, and/or participatory, engaged as much with narrative as with the ritual of live performance itself.
Recent credits include The Undercity by Gaby FeBland, a wordless puppet piece about a rat metropolis (Culture Lab LIC); Chekhov’s The Seagull (Quinnipiac University); Abby Paj Tries to Stay Alive, a solo performance by Abby Pajakowski about prepper culture and depression (The Neo-Futurists, Chicago); and a workshop of Tremolo, Regan Moro’s queer reimagining of The Seagull (Fault Line Theatre’s Irons in the Fire Series). At Yale, Sammy developed and directed new plays The Figs by Doug Robinson and rent free by Danielle Stagger, as well as his own adaptation of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and Annie Baker's translation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.
Before moving to the East Coast for graduate school, Sammy lived and worked in Chicago where select credits include the Chicago premieres of The Late Wedding and Home Invasion by Christopher Chen; the solo performances of John Michael Meatball Séance (WINNER: Best Solo Performance Ottawa Fringe Festival) and Spank Bank Time Machine which has handed out 4,000 doses of Narcan and conducted 48 Narcan demonstrations across 8 cities; and new plays by playwrights Beth Hyland, Laura Winters, and others.
Sammy has assisted directors including Les Waters, Steve Cosson, Lee Sunday Evans, Jessica Thebus, Meredith McDonough, Michael Patrick Thornton, John Vreeke, Devon DeMayo, and Marti Lyons, and worked at institutions including Steppenwolf Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and The Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is an alumnus of the Actors Theatre of Louisville Directing Apprenticeship and Northwestern University where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in theater.
As a filmmaker, Sammy tends to make intimate character studies which playfully blur the line between comedy and tragedy. His short films have screened at festivals across the country, including his most recent short Clambake which screened at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and his self-written short Cheese Shop which won Best Director at the Windy City International Film Festival and Audience Choice Award at Indieworks.