Elizabeth Helman is originally from South Lake Tahoe, CA. She studied Theatre Arts and English (Creative Writing) at Santa Clara University and earned her BA in 2000. She received a Graduate Teaching Fellowship at University of Oregon where she earned her MA and Ph.D. in Theatre Arts. She wrote her Master Thesis on Holocaust drama and her doctoral dissertation on the drama of Suzan-Lori Parks. Her areas of interest include women's drama, post-colonial/postmodern drama, theatre history, women in religion, and playwriting. At Oregon State University Elizabeth teaches courses in acting, playwriting, theatre history, Script Analysis, Intro to Theatre Arts, and dramatic literature. She has directed a variety of productions at OSU including Arcadia, Macbeth, A Bright Room Called Day, Three Sisters, Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, 1984, Shakespeare in Love, Love's Labour's Lost, and The Diary of Anne Frank. She also serves as academic advisor for the Theatre Arts area. Elizabeth has worked as an actor, writer, and director for over fifteen years. She has directed a number of productions for the St. Louis Actors’ Studio, two of which (Topdog/Underdog and All in the Timing) have received St. Louis Theatre Circle nominations for “Best Director.” Elizabeth was commissioned in 2014 to develop and direct a production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for the Oregon Contemporary Theatre in Eugene where she has also directed The Great Gatsby, Silent Sky, The Revolutionists, and a world premiere of Andrea Stolowitz's play Successful Strategies. Elizabeth recently developed an OSU Theatre podcast, Dam the Distance with Oregon State University Theatre as a platform for interviews with industry professionals, sharing theatre dramaturgy, and releasing creative content from the University Theatre.