Sara Holdren | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1986 (age 39–40) |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Yale University (BA, MFA) |
| Notable awards | George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism |
| Website | |
| saraholdren | |
Sara Holdren (born 1986) [1] is an American theater critic and stage director. She has been theater critic for New York magazine, and its culture website Vulture, since 2023, a role she previously held from 2017 to 2019.
Holdren grew up in Virginia near Charlottesville. She was "raised on Arthur Rackham, The Brothers Grimm, Alice in Wonderland " and the works of William Shakespeare. [2] At an early age, Holdren saw performances by the Shenandoah Shakespeare EXPRESS. [1] Her passion for theater inspired her parents to become involved with the craft. [3]
She studied theater at Yale University, where she directed several plays, graduating in 2008. [4] [5] [6] [7] There, she was artistic director of the student experimental theater, The Control Group. [8] [9]
In her final year, she was described by a fellow student as a constitutive part of the theater community:
"I always see the [Yale] theater scene as having three different sections: Dramat on one end, then experimental theater — Control Group, Sarah [sic] Holdren and all that — and then the people in between” [10]
After graduating, Holdren moved back to Virginia. [11] She directed several plays for Charlottesville community theaters, including Henry IV and The Tempest. [12] [13]
Holdren then returned to Yale, where she received an MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama in 2015. [14] She completed her director's thesis on The Master and Margarita under the faculty advisor Tim Vasen. [15]
In early 2017, Holdren published her first theater review, a scathing piece on the new musical Joan of Arc: Into the Fire at Public Theater for the website CultureBot. In July of that year, she was recruited as theater critic by New York magazine and its website Vulture. [14] [1] American Theatre called her hire "something of a wild card." [16] She received the 2016-2017 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for her piece on Joan of Arc. [17]
When asked about her critical inspirations, Holdren cited E.M. Forster's "What I Believe," Ursula K. LeGuin's repertoire of essays, and Harold C. Goddard's The Meaning of Shakespeare. She also named John Lahr, Pauline Kael, and Emily Nussbaum as critics she admired. [1]
In October 2019, Holdren left New York to focus on her directing career. [18] She later also attributed her decision to burnout. [19] Holdren returned to New York as critic in August 2023. [19]
Holdren was a finalist for the 2025 Pullitzer Prize in Criticism for her "insightful theater criticism that combines a reporter's eye and a historian's memory to inform readers about current stage productions." [20] [21]
Her reviews have been cited in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The New York Post, and The Times of London. [22] [23] [24] [25]
While serving as artistic director of the Yale Summer Cabaret in 2015, Holdren, with dramaturg Rachel Carpman, co-adapted and directed Midsummer, a pastiche based on A Midsummer Night's Dream and incorporating text from many of Shakespeare's other plays. [26] [27] Journalist Lucy Gellman wrote that the production "turns Shakespeare’s play joyfully on its head, exposing the whimsical, comedic, and sinister that stirs the rough magic of his brain." [28] In 2017, Holdren and Carpman founded the theater company Tiltyard, and presented Midsummer off-off-Broadway. Lee Seymour praised the production in Forbes . [29] Holdren revised Midsummer for the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [30]
From 2018 to 2020, Holdren was the artistic director of Shakespeare Academy @ Stratford summer theater program. Since first leaving New York in 2019, Holdren has directed at colleges and at regional theaters including the Cleveland Play House and Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. [31] [32] [33]
In May 2025, Holdren directed and co-adapted Faust for Heartbeat Opera. In a mixed review for The New York Times , Joshua Barone complimented Holdren as an "excellent theater critic" with a "real, exciting theatrical instinct" as a director. [34] The production also received a mixed review from the New York Observer . [35]
Holdren teaches at Yale. [33]
Sara Holdren married writer Beau Gambold on August 11, 2020 in Charlottesville. [36] She went on maternity leave from New York in the summer of 2025 and wrote on her personal website that she has a daughter named Revel. [3] [33]
In 2020, Holdren and Gambold bicycled from Virginia to Oregon, documenting the progress on the blog "Casing the Promised Land." [19] [37]
'They were a bit confused as to what we were doing and tried to stop the show,' Control Group artistic director Sarah Holdren '08 said. 'Apparently experimental theater can be a little loud, as it well should be.'