Jennifer Little is a theatrical performer, director, activist and educator. She has been involved in theatre her entire life. She is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.
Jennifer Little as Carlotta in Phantom of the Opera
Jennifer Little, currently directing, producing and teaching in Michigan, Oakland Community College, and elsewhere.
Jennifer Little spent over fifteen years as a professional actress, performing on Broadway with such luminaries as Harold Prince and in film (with Ron Howard and Penny Marshall) and television. Her credits include The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Mame, As The World Goes Round and others. She holds a B.A from SJSU in Performance and a M.A. from CUNY in Applied Theatre.
She worked onstage polishing and perfecting her craft in theatre for over twenty years. She trained under the mentorship of the late, great Harold Prince and was lucky to work with such talented artists as Rita Harvey, Brian D’Arcy James, Michael Cervaris, Sarah Pfisterer, Neil Berg, Alice Ripley and others. She performed in Europe and in the United States during the breadth of her career and still can be found doing projects.
In 2005, she began teaching, (working on bringing applied theatre to standard curriculum programs) and directing. She has directed multiple works, including musicals, straight plays and original devised works.
Her directing work has been seen in New York, Edinburgh, Wales, New Jersey and Michigan. She has worked with both Equity performers and non-professionals alike and has a reputation for building co-intentionality into all of her projects, wherein the actors and she work together to create new experiences and lenses through which the work is viewed.
As part of her social justice theatrical endeavors, Jennifer spent two years going into correctional institutions, visiting incarcerated undocumented citizens, listening to their stories and documenting their journey from their home country to the United States. She attended hearings, visited and interviewed advocates and community members and was present in court rooms to hear how the immigration process handled people fleeing from abuse, torture and terror to find a better life in America. She continues to work with a colleague in Vermont on an original piece exploring immigration.
In 2016, she created a partnership with Arc Mercer in New Jersey and Kirk Ponton, collaborating on both original devised works and scripted musicals, bringing adults with disabilities into partnership with college students as part of large scaled productions. The star of Patrice, the new Hulu Documentary, was a member of this community and partnership. Since arriving at Oakland Community College, she has collaborated with OCC’s outstanding American Sign Language program, integrating student shadow interpreters into all of the theatrical productions. The interpreters and actors work together from the beginning of the rehearsal process to tell stories in a more inclusive manner for our communities.
She traveled to Bangladesh courtesy of an Association of Performers and Presenters (APAP) grant in order to study Bangladeshi theatre and present workshops on American theatre at the University of Dhaka and Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Arts. While there, she worked with BITA (Bangladesh Institute Theatre of Arts) focusing on theatre in education and environmental and social issues in the Hill Tracts Region. In addition, her studies from that trip were published in Bangla in Chittagong, Bangladesh in 2015.
2020 and Covid found Jennifer creating online productions, along with original, devised podcasts. She also directed a live show, fully masked, with a small, masked audience. Her discoveries during the pandemic allowed her to explore new ways of storytelling and devising around a global event that both united and divided the world. With theatre’s resurgence, she is back to a full-time directing and teaching schedule in Michigan and elsewhere. The coming seasons will include musicals, dramas and TYA, along with returning to some overseas projects.
She helped found SOS Theatre Company and with that company, created several critically acclaimed, award-winning original dramas. She has won multiple awards including the 2014 New Jersey State Jefferson Youth Project 360 Honoree for Peace and Justice. She is currently a Tenured Full-Time Theatre Director and Instructor at Oakland Community College, managing their theatre department, and continues to work in applied theatre with communities across the world. She presented at NYU’s conference on Applied Theatre and Citizenship, EdTA National Conference, Human Rights in Global Perspective Conference, ATHE National Conference, and National Drama Conference in Wales and worked with the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) writing the new national standards for theatre.
In 2023, Jennifer won the NISOD Excellence in Teaching Award, as well as her own college’s Excellence in Teaching recognition. In Fall of 2024, she directed Neil Berg’s world premiere of Charlie Hu$tle to critical acclaim and full houses.
In 2024, Jennifer partnered with Kiran-Durae Lambert, co-founding and artistic directing, Theatre Artemisia, a feminist theatre company - focused on material by women, for women. In the troubling times the world is facing, it is more important than ever we create spaces to lift the voices of those being silenced. Theatre Artemisia is committed to embracing all of those currently being banned by fascist ideas and regimes.