Brooke Shilling is a good 'ol misfit who leans in to the unexpected, empowers the unpredictable, and tickles the lines between the reverent and irreverent. She devises physical, childlike, and provocative theatrical performances that invite her audiences to dream, to hope, to grieve, and to rile up the bonafide goofballs inside us all. ​

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Born and raised in New York City, Brooke is a theatre artist, theatre educator, and clown. She has worked with groups such as One Year Lease Theater Company, Theater Unspeakable, inFLUX Theatre Collective, Theatre Ariel, and more. She has facilitated workshops and taught as a visiting artist at the University of the Arts, Theatre Horizon, One Year Lease Theater Company's International Program in Greece, Japan and India, performing arts high schools, and more, working with both theatre makers and non-theatre makers, the elderly, autistic youth and young adults, incarcerated young people, medical and business students, and others.

 

As a playwright, Brooke is a member of the 2024-2025 PlayPenn Playwright's Cohort and was a 2024 Terrance McNally Award Semi-finalist. Brooke is a two-time Illuminate the Arts Individual Artist Grant recipient, awarded by the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. And she holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College and an MFA in Devised Performance from The University of the Arts/Pig Iron School.

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Brooke's solo show Ladies of the Land has been presented at The Drama League, Dixon Place, and the Shoe Box Short Theatre Festival. Other original works include Threnody, Sinky The Pirate and Pirate Queens, which was a 2024 Week Two Philly Fringies Frontrunner at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Brooke has also co-written the play WAKE with Leon Ingulsrud and One Year Lease Theater Company, which will be shared in New York at 59E59 Theaters in November 2025.

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Brooke creates and shares all of her work in memory of her mom, Diane. 

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