Jasmine B. Gunter (she/her) is a third-year MFA directing candidate at Northwestern University. She is the 2021 recipient of the Hangar Directing Drama League fellowship, the 2020 recipient of the Leighton M. Ballew Directing Scholarship, and a SDC associate member. Recent directing credits include The Revolutionists (Northwestern University), jump (Northwestern University) Lost Girl (Hangar Theatre), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Hangar Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Northwestern University) Wine in the Wilderness (Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts), Intimate Apparel (SUNY Brockport), Ghost Story (Kane Repertory Theatre), Lines in the Dust (Geva Theatre Center), Reroute (24 Hour Plays: Nationals). Assistant directing: Nina Simone: Four Women (Arena Stage), In the Heights (Seattle Rep), Quixote Nuevo (Hartford Stage/Huntington Theatre Company), and The Luckiest People (Actors Theatre of Charlotte/NNPN). Jasmine has also taught at the Berkshire Theatre Group and the Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, NY.
UPCOMING: Director for The Love Object at The Story Theatre (2024)
…are the four words that live at the forefront of my work. I am inspired by the gaps in history. By “gaps in history”, I am not talking about the textbook version of history handed down to us. I am talking about the tiny, neglected cracks where no one cared or thought to look. Who are the people and the stories that have been lost to time? I search for these gaps in the world. In America’s lineage. In my family’s lineage. In my own life. It is in those gaps, I have found the greatest potential for storytelling. I strive to create art that rediscovers, reimagines, and redefines the past in order to build better, brighter futures for ourselves. Through reaching back, we are propelled forward toward agency, healing, self-expression, and freedom. My work invites us to examine the past from the present point in which we stand. How do we decide what to let go of and what to carry forward with us into the future?