Meet Rachel Wansker | Actor, Clown, Puppeteer, Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachel Wansker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
Joy. I am a great believer in joy and the virtues it brings. One of my favorite authors Brene Brown says that, Joy is a positive attitude that comes from feeling connected to yourself. She also says that joy is the most vulnerable emotion we can experience. and , “If you cannot tolerate joy, you start rehearsing tragedy.” Joy is so terrifying and so deeply vulnerable, it requires defending and nurturing through love and care. So the audience or student may feel a deep connection with themselves and others.

I wear a lot of hats. I am an actor, a clown, a puppeteer, and a teaching artist. But really, I only have one job. I am a warrior of joy. Joy truly is a magical property. In the classroom, joy can give a refugee girl the confidence to read out loud in English. Puppets can help a child feel brave and speak their truth through a joyful fuzzy friend. The red nose of a clown is a joy megaphone, proclaiming its truth through the medium of laughter.

I believe we can heal the world with Joy.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
When I think of my work so far, It all seems to meld together. I just hope in the end it helps someone. That the art I create spreads joy and gives someone, anyone, a moment of healing. I think the most important lesson I have learned is to keep going. Build a protective wall around your creativity. Allowing the industry, day jobs, exhaustion to decide for me when I should be creative, has killed my desire to make things. I now know how to keep being creative for the sake of doing so. Creation is an act of love, and an act of joy. A necessary part of self love and I will never pressure myself to make money off of it. Just because it helps pay the bills now, doesn’t mean I should stop when it doesn’t. Keep going! Every skill is built from individual minutes of practice. I hesitate even now to learn new skills because the time it will take to learn. It’s always worth it. Always.

Below is my bio for reference. It goes in to detail about my past work:

Rachel Wansker is an actor and educator from Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Performance Studies from Kennesaw State University. For the past nine years, she has performed with fifteen professional theatre companies in four different countries. She has also worked as a performer in film and television. As a puppeteer she has been contracted by Netflix and has even traveled as far as Amsterdam to film an entire 10 episode Dutch television series. She is working as a teaching artist at The Alliance Theatre where she provides arts integration and acting classes for students of all ages throughout Georgia. Rachel is a staff member at The Center for Puppetry Arts where she teaches puppet building and performance workshops.

She has worked with refugee girls at the Global Village Project teaching English to ease their transition into the American education system. She taught refugee girls and girls from group homes to empower their voices through theatre, music, and dance at Synchronicity Theatre’s Playmaking for Girls Program. She traveled to Haiti, where she volunteered for The Bright Initiative and provided Theatre and Puppetry workshops and services for Haitian schools and students.

Rachel spent nine months as a social change fellow for Yahel Israel, a non-profit service-learning organization focused on social change in low-income neighborhoods in Israel. In Israel, she taught English and Theatre to students in Israeli schools, children in the welfare system, adults with mental illness, and Ethiopian immigrants.

After completing her fellowship in Israel, Rachel studied Clown and Body Memory at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo Italy for the summer of 2019. At the Accademia, Rachel also taught workshops in ‘Theatre for Social Change’, ‘Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Cultural Sensitivity, and ‘Yoga for Children’.

After returning to the USA, Rachel earned her Professional Training Certificate from Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in California. At Dell’ Arte, Rachel studied a large array of physical theatre styles, including; Mask, Commedia Dell’arte, Melodrama, and Clown. Through the Dell’Arte PTP program, Rachel taught for an artist residency in which she and her ensemble brought theatre workshops to the Native Wiyot community in rural California. This residency had a specific goal to support the revival of the Wiyot language and to bring the arts to rural communities. She is certified in Teaching English as a Second Language and has traveled all over the world to teach English and work in ESL. Rachel has also recently partnered with Clowns without Borders, teaching English to clowns in Ecuador. This past summer, she spent three weeks traveling all over Ecuador performing with the amazing Ecuadorian clown company Humor Y Vida in collaboration with Clowns without borders. There she also taught workshops focusing on puppetry, English learning and human rights.

This year, Rachel has used her clown skills to perform in many productions as a Clown in a movement adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, a collaboration of with The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and The Alliance Theatre and the Alliance Theatre’s current production of ROOB AND NOOB. You can find her this spring starring as Pinocchio in The Object Group’s production of Pinocchio.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
It’s kind of cheesy, but I would take them to the places that I work. A tour of the Center for Puppetry Arts, seeing a nationally acclaimed show at the Alliance Theatre. I am so lucky to work at these extraordinary places. There are so many more excellent other theatre spots as well. I would take them to a different show every night. I love this city because there is art everywhere you look. I also love the High Museum, the holiday lights at the Botanical Gardens and Piedmont Park. Especially the ice cream festival.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to dedicate this shout out to the education department at the center for puppetry arts and Damon Young, for nominating me.

Instagram: @WanskerMonster @PickleAndPantz

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXiY9I7F07GrYEBRVN1BP0A

Image Credits
Documencia @Documencia on Instagram