Carla Cantrelle
Actor. Playwright. Novelist.
About Me
I'm happiest diving into a script--whether it's a play in development, a classic, exploring a film/TV character, or developing material through improv--and then bringing the role to life. A native New Yorker, I lived in Nashville for several years where i donned pink cowboy boots and learned to have a twang. I returned to NYC and in a surprising twist ended up on a trapeze! Who would have thought the upper-west-side Vassar girl would detour through the south and then perform in and co-produce a long-running aerial variety show! Certainly not me! But that's what happened and I have some great stories, some of which ended up in plays and others in short stories and novels (mostly written under other names...)
RECENT
I just performed in the 2025 "Spring Forward" festival at The Barrow Group in Carla Katz's delightful 2-hander Pop-Up.
I am delighted to continue to be a reader Arlene Hutton's Master Class in Playwriting at the Barrow Group.
Still loving my work as an Improv facilitator for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, traveling the country to work with amazing scientists at all stages of their careers: grad students, lead PIs at NASA and everything (and everyone) in between!
My short play, Let's Not Talk About Men (published in Best Ten Minute Plays of 2010 by Smith & Krause) has been getting a number of college productions all over the country.
More About Me...
I've appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 5 times, often in my own plays.
Pre-Covid I was a singer for Concerts In Motions, performing folk songs, pop songs, and standards in nursing homes, hospitals, and for homebound elderly in their apartments all over New York City.
As a fiction writer I was artist-in-residence at the Blue Mountain Center and the Millay Colony and was invited to Francis Ford Coppella's Zoetrope All-Story Writers Conference and the Breadloaf Writers Conference.
