Jeanette Harrison is a director, writer, actor, and producer, who has spent most of her career in theater. For television, she co-wrote with Sharmila Devar a half-hour comedy about family and cultural identity, FEATHERS AND DOTS, DOTS AND FEATHERS. She created and was Head Writer for the webseries The Breakdown (3 seasons); and was a staff writer for the webseries Coach Dan. For SPASigma, she was Head Writer and 2nd Unit Director for their most recent documentary, and a staff writer on Personality Quotient (2018).
In 2004 she co-founded the award-winning AlterTheater in the San Francisco Bay Area. At AlterTheater, she architected the ground-breaking AlterLab playwright residency program. She has shepherded more than 20 new plays to world premiere productions. She directed AlterTheater’s world premiere of AlterLab commission COW PIE BINGO by Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota), the professional premiere of CIRCULAR by Laura Shamas (Chickasaw), and the multi-Theatre Bay Area award-winning production THE AMEN CORNER by James Baldwin. She also co-directed (with Ann Brebner) AlterLab-developed THE RIVER BRIDE by Marisela Treviño Orta, which went on to Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2016 mainstage season, and LANDLESS by Larissa FastHorse, which won the USA Pen Literary Award in Drama.
Jeanette has worked with Cutting Ball Theatre (…and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi by Marcus Gardley, winner of Best Production and Best Ensemble from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Aurora Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Theatre Rhino, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Sonoma County, Sonoma County Rep, Golden Thread Productions, Woman’s Will, Playhouse West, and Combined Art Form Entertainment (C.A.F.E.), among others. Jeanette has taught at the University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts, Santa Clara University, and College of Marin, and been a guest lecturer at Sonoma State University and Dominican University. A Native New Yorker, she is of Onondaga descent.