Rebecca Novick is a theatermaker and cultural strategist based in Berkeley, California. Rebecca was the founder of Crowded Fire Theater Company and served as its artistic director for ten years. She then served as the associate artistic director at California Shakespeare Theater where she led a new arts engagement department. Rebecca has consulted for many arts non-profits, foundations, and individual artists, served as the interim program officer for the arts at the SF Foundation, and was a senior member of the staff at Theatre Bay Area. She has served on every side of the table: as a grantseeker and grantmaker, a freelance artist and a producer at a large theater, a founding artistic director, and a leader at a service organization. In all these roles, she has been dedicated to building an expansive, inclusive, equitable arts community.
As an artist, Rebecca delves into borders, loss, language and liberation. Her theatrical work focuses on community-engaged script development, mixed professional/community ensembles, performances outside conventional spaces and plays dealing with pressing social issues. She continues to explore the questions of who gets to call themselves an artist, whose stories get shared, and how we can build artistic processes that embody the kind of justice we are striving for. Following these inquiries has brough her into collaborations with unhoused youth, tenants organizing for rent control, elders in the disability movement, returning parolees, and many more.
Rebecca’s cultural strategy work builds on her deep belief that the SOMETHING SOMETHING. She is especially interested in shared leadership models and exploring new ways to plan in our constantly shifting landscape. Currently, Rebecca’s offers consulting services through Creative Evolutions, a new arts ecosystem creating actionable solutions for a more just arts field. Rebecca has been a leader in local and national changemaking efforts throughout her career. From her viral essay “Please Don’t Start a Theater Company” to catalyzing a major shift in Cal Shakes’ relationship to community to co-founding Bay Area Artists for Racial Justice in 2020, to her multi-year project tracking demographic shifts in theater leadership, she is known for thoughtful analysis and strategic community-building for change. Some notable consulting projects include strategic plans for the Jewish Film Institute and PEN/Faulkner, executive search for Theatre Communications Group, and guiding a change in leadership structure at Cutting Ball Theatre.
Rebecca holds a BA from the University of Michigan in Drama and Anthropology and an MFA from Goddard College in Interdisciplinary Arts with a performance concentration.
