Welcome!
I'm Rachel

a headshot of Rachel Herriges

I’m a playwright and actor who loves to explore the abstract and ironic elements of being a human. My work centers around the grotesque side of clichés in poetic prose. Often my writting includes crippling family structures, unexpected gods, forbidden lovers, and decompositions of the human psyche.

A portrait of Rachel Herriges

As a recent Westmont College graduate with a Theater Arts BA, many of Rachel’s plays have been produced in the short play Fringe Festival. Notable highlights are Liminal, Purgatory, or Whatever (where the afterlife is a farm), celestial bodies (starcrossed lovers who are actually in the stars), and mind(full) (a dystopian interrogation room). Her capstone project, Hysteria (forest nymph meets Twilight meets the end of the world), was performed on Porter Theater’s stage in May 2023.

Rachel’s journey continues in Chicago, where she has been seen on stage in The Runaways Lab Theater’s Milking the Beast and Going to Hell and Thumbprint Studio’s Collab24 Devised Theater Festival. Recently, her play Hot Yoga for Women’s Bodies was selected to showcase in the Chicago Dramatist Network’s annual Four Loves Festival.

Projects

Kitty Hawk or Kill Devil

2021
Directed by: Diana Lynn Small
Written by: Hannah Kenah
Role: Lucas

KITTY HAWK OR KILL DEVIL engages in the turf war between Ohio and North Carolina, landing firmly on the side of Ohio, where aviation was born. As the Wright Brothers search for a perfect testing ground, a multi-generational, semi-fictional family of Ohioans wrestle with the Kitty Hawk betrayal.

Meanwhile Michael Collins, the third astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission, waits on the dark side of the Moon as Neil and Buzz walk in the light of all that glory. Kitty Hawk or Kill Devil is a play about our country's obsession with greatness and about those of us (most of us) who live only in proximity to it.

mind(full)

2022
Directed by: Rachel Herriges and Ford Sachsenmaier
Written by: Rachel Herriges
Role: Elliot

mind(full) is a short dystopian, experimental play that was performed in Westmont’s Fringe festival. In an underground bunker, an attorney and defendant engage in mental tug-of-war to to fight this society’s model of “guilty until proven innocent.”

With the execution clock ticking, Lee attempts to unravel the mystery behind the defendant, Elliot. Rachel’s portrayal of Elliot leaned into the defendant’s argumentative nature with nuance and poise. Both actors, Rachel and Ford Sachsenmaier, directed the show while swapping roles multiple times throughout the writing process.

She Kills Monsters

2022
Directed by: Mitchell Thomas
Written by: Qui Nguyen
Role: Tilly

She Kills Monsters brings a comedic, fantastical Dungeons and Dragons story to the stage through the eyes of the cheerleader, Agnes, in an attempt to better understand her geeky younger sister, Tilly. Following an adventure with orges, fairies, and elves, Agnes learns that her sister may not have been exactly who she thought she was.

Playing the role of Tilly, Rachel fought monsters and dragons galore while maintaining the emotional connection of the strong Paladin. With dance numbers, sword wielding, and stage combat, She Kills Monsters premiered on Porter Theater’s stage in Santa Barbara, CA.

Hysteria

2023
Directed by: Landon Moir
Written by: Rachel Herriges
Role: Naomi

Hysteria is a new play by Rachel Herriges that brings the 2010’s back to the stage with a supernatural flair. With odes to One Direction, school dances, and the end of the Mayan calendar, Naomi must navigate what it means to grow up in 2012 with an angry mother. Everything changes when she meets a mysterious boy in the forest, and impending doom becomes divine judgment.

As Naomi, Rachel walked the line of angst and child-like wonder that remains in teenagers. Hysteria was performed on Porter Theater’s stage as Rachel’s Capstone project at Westmont College.

Collab24

2023
Directed by: Kat Philips and Grant Landau-Williams
Written by: The Makers
Role: Maker

Collab24 is an annual 24-hour Devised Theater Festival in Chicago, IL where two groups of devisers created a story pertaining to the guidelines - reconstructing and deconstructing. Rachel’s group created the piece Cheesecake and Wine, where fellow maker Garrett Sweere performed a monologue she wrote for the production. Their piece combined the deep emotional undertone of pushing against societal expectations while including light-hearted dream sequences, dance, and improvisation. In the intimate space of Greenhouse Theater’s Studio 44, the audience was invited to join the actors as they broke free of expectations through devised theater.

Stakeholders

2023
Directed by: Joel Willison
Written by: Dakota Brown
Role: Council Member

Milking the Beast and Going to Hell is an annual short play festival pertaining to whichever topic is selected that year. All twelve plays contained a beast being milked and going to hell. Rachel starred in two short plays, Glot Goes to Heaven and the Stakeholders. The Stakeholders took a cooperate approach to hell with a new employee entering into a hell-scape he had never expected in an attempt to make money.

In an ensemble member role, Rachel and the cast focused on Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints exercises to make this collective hellscape a reality. For one weekend only, this festival was brought to life in Link’s Hall in Chicago, IL.

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