Board of Directors

(Member At Large)

Artistic Director Sarah Close has been with HYRT since 2016 when she was in the 7th grade. In 2025, Sarah flew the nest to chase her dream in the Big Apple. But she often flies back to campus where she can be spotted writing in lantern lit spaces, feeding lines to elementary-aged performers and directing our summer spectacles: “Years from now, when I look back on my time at Hilltown, I believe I will remember these summers in the brightest colors. We had a spectacular comeback from two hard, but strong pandemic spectacles. We sprung back, like nothing had changed, with a host of new ensemble members who I know will be an essential piece of Hilltown’s future. For those of you who are new to the program, especially my cohorts in Recovery, who found yourself faltering and were strong enough to practice selfcare by reaching out to a friend or sitting out a performance or both. I want to take a moment to appreciate your courage. When I found Hilltown Youth Theater’s Recovery program, I had just completed the hardest year of my life. I was diagnosed with panic disorder, which made sense given the multiple daily panic attacks so intense I was incapable of pulling in enough air to breathe. At the time, I didn’t realize how much Recovery Theater would shape the core of who I am now. I’ve managed things I never would have thought possible when I began; graduating high school, traveling alone, learning to live life without a script. The first time I was asked to direct I chose Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. Gaiman’s award winning novella is a wonderfully weird and beautiful story about resilience, bravery and being a child. I think it was a perfect choice for our own wonderfully weird ensemble, and was well suited for our recovery program when it tells us: ‘Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.’”