Sandra de Helen
(Updated: 12/8/2025) Sandra de Helen's dramas and comedies have been performed all over the United States as well as Internationally. Audiences in NYC, Chicago, Ireland, London, San Diego, Los Angels, Canada, and the Philippines have been entertained and challenged by Sandra’s provocative writing. Recently, her work was staged in Portland, Oregon as part of the Fertile Ground for New Works Festival. Her plays have been staged at Athena Cats Theatre of Santa Monica, Women's Theatre Festival of NC, Samuel French in LA, and Diversionary Theatre in San Diego. In the past ten years, her work has been staged in London, NYC, LA, Portland, and Canada. Her writings are archived in the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Collection at Ohio State University. Her oral history is archived at the Oregon Historical Society. Sandra studied with Maria Irene Fornes, Matt Zrebski and Sage Cohen. With Kate Kasten, she co-founded Actors’ Sorority in Kansas City, Missouri. Later Sandra founded the Portland Women’s Theatre Company as well as Penplay. Today, she is a lifetime member of Dramatists Guild, International Centre for Women Playwrights, and Honor Roll! de Helen’s essays and poetry appear in Artemis Journal, Dramatist, ROAR, The Medical Journal of Australia, The Dandelion Review, Lavender Review: Night Issue, Sweatpants & Coffee, Mom Egg, and other journals. Her full-length poetry collections (Desire Returns for a Visit, 2018, Lesbian Humor is Not an Oxymoron, 2019, Poetry for the People, 2020, The World’s a Stage, 2021, I Eat My Words: A Poetry Cookbook, and Migraines and Their Remedies, 2023) are published by Launch Point Press. de Helen is also novelist. In 2025, de Helen received the Alice B. Award. The award is presented to living writers to have careers distinguished by consistently well-written works about lesbians.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.sandradehelen.substack.com
FB: dehelen
MORE ABOUT ME
After nearly fifty years of doing theater, I continue because it is play! I made up stories, and we put them on for an audience. If I could change one thing about theater, I would make it so accessible everyone would want to come. Free childcare, ASL signed, sliding scale for tickets (no one left out), wheelchair accessible, subtitles, scent sensitivity taken care. Comfortable seating where everyone can see the stage. Okay, that's not one thing, but to narrow it down to one word: accessibility.
WHAT I'M WORKING ON
A play about Louise Fitzhugh, the woman who wrote the Harriet the Spy books for kids.
KEYWORDS
Lesbian, Queer, comedy, drama, equality.
