We’re thrilled to welcome Rachel Sabo-Hedges to the Off The Lane team as our School Partnerships Chair and ColLab Artistic Director! Rachel started her journey with OTL as a mentee in our Mentorship Program (Spring, 2021), and look where she is now! Learn more about Rachel in our Q&A below:
What feelings come to mind when you think of your future in your new positions at Off the Lane?
Excitement, possibility, exploration—I want to help launch Off the Lane and the ColLab program into an era of bold artistic bravery, especially when it comes to new and immersive work. And getting to collaborate with Sophie Brubaker, who’s a visionary in her own right, feels like the dream partnership to take on that challenge.
On the flip side, with the new School Partnership Program, I’m excited to work with a generation of emerging artists who are curious about theatre that pushes boundaries and invites exploration. All to say—I feel excited. I feel ready.
What is your vision for the future of ColLab and the School Partnerships programs? What do you hope these programs can become?
Let’s start with our School Partnership Program. Off the Lane is the reason I have a flourishing artistic community in New York City. They helped nurture my artistic voice—and I know they’ve done the same for so many others. This new program is arriving at the perfect time, because in many ways, Off the Lane has always been doing this work. Now, we’re making it official. I’m excited to uplift the voices of bold, emerging theatre makers—because, as my good friend says, the young are at the gates.
The future of the ColLab program is something incredibly close to my heart. I directed my first full-length play in NYC with ColLab (Bad Jews by Joshua Harmon), and I’ve witnessed some truly electric work come to life in that immersive, Off-Off-Broadway space.
My hope is to help build a season that invites audiences into theatre in fresh, unexpected ways. Sophie and I always talk about “upending audience expectations”—and my goal is to enhance that, while delivering a strong, reliable, and artistically rigorous season. ColLab is the future of theatre in NYC, and I’m honored to help shape where it goes next.
What kind of art and theatrical experiences inspire you the most? Can you give an example?
The common denominator in theatre that moves me is unexpected truth. Real life is magical, chaotic, strange – and when theatre captures that in equally magical, chaotic, and strange ways, it hits with this raw, resonant honesty that cracks me open. It makes me laugh, cry, rage out…whatever it pulls out of me is the reason I go to the theatre in the first place. Some of the works that have done this for me include CATS: The Jellicle Ball, Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (directed by Lila Neugebauer), and JOB by Max Wolf Friedlich (directed by Michael Herwitz). These productions didn’t just tell a story, they revealed something deeply human in a way I didn’t see coming.
How does your experience as a director influence you in taking on these new artistic roles?
When I’m directing, I see myself as an explorer—diving deep into the world of a script, learning its rhythms, textures, and people from the inside out. Artistic directing, on the other hand, feels more like being the mapmaker. I get to zoom out and chart the larger journey, ensuring that each project moves us toward something meaningful and aligns with our greater vision. Whether I’m leading a season or building the School Partnerships Program, I approach both with curiosity, trust, and a clear sense of purpose.
What would be a dream project for Off the Lane to produce? For school partnerships and ColLab?
In high school, I was lucky to have theatre teachers who empowered us to devise original work each year for a major theatre festival.
Those projects were some of the most fulfilling experiences of my life—they gave me agency, sparked deep curiosity, and made me realize how much I was capable of as an artist.
That’s what I hope to bring to the School Partnerships Program: space for students to shape their own artistic paths; whether that’s acting, directing, writing, or something else entirely.
For ColLab, my dream is to stage something that challenges both the artists and the audience…a piece that feels alive, immediate, and unexpected.
That could mean taking a play we think we know and completely reimagining it, or producing a bold new work that deserves a platform. I want ColLab to be a space where risk is welcomed, where emerging voices are heard, and where the work lingers in the room long after it ends.
How does your experience as a director influence you in taking on these new artistic roles?
When I’m directing, I see myself as an explorer—diving deep into the world of a script, learning its rhythms, textures, and people from the inside out. Artistic directing, on the other hand, feels more like being the mapmaker. I get to zoom out and chart the larger journey, ensuring that each project moves us toward something meaningful and aligns with our greater vision. Whether I’m leading a season or building the School Partnerships Program, I approach both with curiosity, trust, and a clear sense of purpose.
