Rachel Kaftan

Rachel grew up in rainy Seattle as the only child of two moms and a gay dad...she came out to everybody as "straight" when she was seven years old. About twelve years later, Rachel moved to sunny LA, where she earner her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Loyola Marymount University. Over the years, she has appeared in a number of short films and theatre productions on the West Coast. Yet, her favorite role to date took place in Germany, where she inhabited a rabid, hyper-sexual, reptilian-esque dog butcher for a study abroad acting program. Rachel is about as type A as they come, so when the global pandemic brought her opportunities for live performance to a halt, she did not stop creating. Instead, Rachel buried her face into a computer screen for a year and a half and wrote. In April 2021, Rachel and a team of fellow creatives brought to life her autobiographical solo show, BOY VEY. It debuted as a live-stream from Santa Monica Playhouse and was viewed by over 1,000 audience members. BOY VEY's success earned Rachel a number of accolades, including the LMU Theatre Arts Department Playwriting Achievement, awarded by Beth Henley and an eight-week in-person run, produced by Santa Monica Playhouse. BOY VEY, directed by Dana Resnick, will remount on January 22, 2022. Aside from writing plays and talking to herself for hours on end, Rachel likes to paint, sing, bake bread, and ogle at cute dogs.