About Cara Cruickshank

Cara Cruickshank is a Brazilian-American who has lived in France and the U.S. As a woman living in three cultures, she has a first-hand view on intersectional themes and challenges for both women and artists.

She began her career in theater at age 10 on Broadway in the musical Les Misérables, followed by a professional acting and singing career including multiple performances at The United Nations General Assembly.

Since then she has independently produced and directed well over 75 independent artistic productions in the U.S. and abroad (including Turkey, France and Brazil), focused on cultural diversity, social justice activism, and girls’ and women's empowerment. Her theater productions, panels, literary salons and cultural events draw from her work in childhood development, education, curricula design, public events, performing arts, independent filmmaking, nonprofit work, project management, entrepreneurship, and community building. 

Cara premiered her original, multimedia theater production, The Alchemy of Imperfection, in Paris, France in 2017 with standing ovations, encores and media acclaim. (View trailer.) Since then, it has toured to five US cities (Boulder, L.A., San Fran, Portland and NYC) in tandem with a panel on the topic: “How Can Men Support Women to Speak Up and Be Seen?” Each production is locally cast and curated with diverse artists, activists, academics and experts who poetically explore female experiences that defy cultural boundaries. 

In 2020 she launched and executive produced The Essential Stories Project, an international film production company which hosted ten live conference panels of international BLM activists and created a YouTube series of those conversations. (View trailer.)

For nine annual seasons, Cara has directed and produced her original wilderness theater production The Halloween Journey, which highlights erased women of NY history and draws an audience of 400 people each year from throughout NY state. This family-friendly event invites the public to take a candlelit hike in the forest to experience folklore and indigenous traditions of the region. (View trailer.)


The core of Cara’s work focuses on bringing diverse communities together through the arts and meaningful dialogue in order to shift patriarchal paradigms.