ELYSE SHARP

I'm an actor, theatremaker, and award-winning Shakespeare scholar based in Sacramento, California.

As a performer, I completed a year-long acting apprenticeship at Capital Stage Company, where I played Debbie in The Real Thing and Fleance in Macbeth. I've since worked with Pacific Repertory Theatre Company, returned to Capital Stage as Mary Bennet in Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley and Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley, and originated the role of Niko in the world premiere of Robert Caisley's The Prince of Lightning: The Story of Young Nikola Tesla, Boy Genius at B Street Theatre.

The work behind the table matters just as much to me. I co-wrote Never Fear, Shakespeare with Sean Patrick Nill for B Street Theatre's Family Series, currently available on New Play Exchange. I served as Associate Producer of B Street Theatre's New Comedies Festival alongside Artistic Director and CEO Lyndsay Burch. I have directed staged readings at B Street Theatre and Capital Stage, and I spent three seasons with Shakespeare on the Vine as assistant director and dramaturg, working on A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry IV, and Twelfth Night alongside Artistic Director Tara Kayton. I also was a co-adaptor for Henry IV, which combined Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2 into one evening’s worth of theatre.

Shakespeare has been at the center of my creative life since I was nine years old. In 2021, I launched Shakespeare Anyone? with Kourtney Smith, a podcast that bridges the gap between Shakespeare scholarship and Shakespeare in production while making the work accessible to a broad audience. We're proud to hold a Top 50 Performing Arts Podcast ranking on Apple Podcasts, and in 2026 we received the Shakespeare Association of America's Shakespeare Publics Award, which recognizes pioneering and culturally significant efforts to bring Shakespeare to broad and diverse audiences through teaching, scholarship, performance, and activism.

I'm a proud member of Actors' Equity Association and a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Whittier College's Theatre Performance program, where I received the Outstanding Graduate in Theatre award and was named an Irene Ryan Regional Semi-Finalist at the American College Theatre Festival.

If any of this sounds like your kind of theatre — let's talk.