Jeanette Harrison

Jeanette Harrison is an award-winning actor, director, screenwriter. She was associate director for the Broadway premiere of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse (dir: Rachel Chavkin). Jeanette spent most of her career in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she co-founded AlterTheater. She worked with most Bay Area theaters, including Playwrights Foundation (director, Real Time Remix by Jaisey Bates), Cutting Ball (Marcus Gardley’s …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, BATCC Award, Best Production), Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, Aurora Theatre, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Cal Shakes, Golden Thread Productions, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. At AlterTheater, she architected the ground-breaking AlterLab playwright residency program, and has shepherded more than 25 new plays to world premiere productions. She directed AlterTheater’s world premiere of AlterLab commission Cow Pie Bingo by Larissa FastHorse, the world premiere of Circular by Laura Shamas, and the multi-Theatre Bay Area award-winning production The Amen Corner by James Baldwin. She also co-directed (with Ann Brebner) AlterLab-developed The River Bride by Marisela Treviño Orta, and Landless by Larissa FastHorse, which won the USA Pen Literary Award in Drama. Her dramaturgical credits include Sapience by Diana Burbano at ART, where she (briefly) served as artistic director, and Ghosts of Bogotá by Diana Burbano with AlterTheater which premiered in 2020. In 2019, she was part of Native American Media Alliance’s inaugural Native Animation Lab, where she developed and later wrote LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL. She is co-director of the Arts Learning Project for Native Youth, a performing arts program designed and taught by Indigenous education experts and Native professional artists. She is beyond thrilled to have found a home at Bag&Baggage, with the visionary leadership of Nik Whitcomb and the generous hearts of Washington County.