“Her work is like her personality: provocative, in your face but with a lot of style.”
Sheila Bandyopadhyay is a director, movement specialist, performer and devisor of original theater based in Brooklyn, New York. With a comprehensive background in new work, physical theatre and Shakespeare, Sheila is lit up by heightened theatrical performance that is immersive, music-driven and physical. She is particularly passionate about innovating adaptations of classical texts and excels as a director of contemporary work by female playwrights.
At Shakespeare & Company. Photo by Christina Lane
Productions credits as a director and devisor include plays featured at the West End Theater, the 72nd St Theater Lab, the Brick, The Tank, the Boston Center for the Arts, and the Fringe Festival circuit.
Sheila has served as a choreographer and/or movement director for productions at Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA), The Humanist Project (NYC), Gallatin NYU (Hamlet, Measure for Measure, The Rape of Lucrece), FSU/Asolo (Twelfth Night, The Aliens) and numerous shows for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts Company.
Signature acting roles include: Jesse/Betty in Dog People (Great Barrington Public Theatre) Tamora in Titus Andronicus (The Humanist Project), and Puck/Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare & Company).
Sheila has been a faculty member or guest artist at NYU Gallatin, Middlebury College, FSU Asolo Conservatory, Emerson College, and CSU Summer Arts among others. From 2022-2025 she served as Director of Actor Training at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. Prior to that she was Head of the Professional Training Program at Dell’Arte International’s School of Physical Theatre and Head of Movement at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
Anti-Racist Ethos
I am committed to creating an anti-racist theatrical experience where we work to ensure that people of the Global Majority are valued, included and in leadership. I seek to liberate myself and others from the unconscious biases that cause harm in this art form and in our world. I am a work in progress, and to that end I am actively engaged in an ongoing process to decolonize my own thinking, to undo the structures of racism that exist within me as well as to point others in the direction of inclusive structures and organizational practices.
*Michael F. Toomey is an actor, director, fight choreographer, teacher and clown.He is a longtime member of Shakespeare & Co and co-founder/Artistic Director of The Humanist Project.