Rachel Gatewood is a Harlem-based actor, producer, and teaching artist whose work lives at the intersection of rigor, play, and experimentation. She moves between physical theatre, classical text, and commercial on-camera work with a text-forward, body-forward approach, honed with a BFA in Acting from SUNY Purchase.

Born in Alabama, raised in Dallas, and the daughter of a baseball coach, Rachel grew up learning how stories stick when they’re paired with discipline, resilience, and a refusal to take life too seriously. Her work interrogates tradition while breaking it open—reimagining lineage as material to be played with, not preserved. She gravitates toward ensemble-based, high-energy performance that demands athleticism and vulnerability. Collaborations include One Year Lease Theatre Company, SITI Company, Adult Film, The Tank, The New Ohio Theatre, The Chain Theatre, Lucid Body House, and Blessed Unrest Ensemble Theatre. Off-stage, she works as a creative producer for the film company Next Door Pictures.

Most recently, she produced and starred in a fully free, outdoor, touring production of What the Constitution Means to Me at The Rivertowns Playhouse. Her performance as Heidi was praised as “really truly virtuosic” by The Rivertowns Dispatch and earned her a BroadwayWorld Nomination for Best Actor in a Play. As a producer, Rachel worked to ensure every show would be accessible, partnered with local nonprofits to raise funds and awareness, and hosted post-show community gatherings with talkbacks, donated food, and conversation.

Rachel also coaches Shakespeare and classical text for high school students, teaching embodied language, confidence, and textual play. When she’s not performing or producing, she can be found devising in dusty basements, advocating for the Turner Classics Movie Cruise with her partner, or trying to hike Breakneck Ridge with her pups (the terrier is thriving, the chihuahua prefers to be carried in a pouch).