Rachel Felstein

A recent transplant to the LA area, Rachel grew up in New York City in a family of artists. Her father is a professional pianist and music director, and Rachel began studying piano and music theory with him when she was three. In addition to learning to read and play music Rachel was always singing. Growing up she took private voice lessons and attended LaGuardia Arts High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts (the “FAME” school) in Manhattan as a voice major. Rachel graduated high school with a number of awards and attended Mannes College the New School for Music as a Voice Performance major. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree with more graduation awards and spent the next few years singing opera and operetta, acting, and teaching students of all ages privately, through several children’s music companies in NYC, and with Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Rachel has been an actor all her life, inspired by her mother who has acted in film, television, and theater for nearly fifty years. After completing a two year Meisner training program with Brooklyn based acting guru Terry Knickerbocker, Rachel moved to Washington, DC and earned an MFA in acting at George Washington University and the Shakespeare Theatre Company. She established herself as a member of DC's thriving theater community and performed with companies such as Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Olney Theatre, and more. During the pandemic shut down Rachel was a producer of a weekly concert series “Night @ Newcastle” from her home with numerous collaborators from the arts community, producing over 70 episodes. She then leapt into the post pandemic life by founding a theater troupe "Her Majesty & Sons", which produced two Shakespeare plays to critical and public acclaim. 

In addition to performing as an actor and musician, Rachel is an award winning composer. She has written, arranged, and music directed for multiple productions in NYC and DC. As a classical singer Rachel stays active as a staff singer at St. Therese Church in the LA area, and is delighted to be in rehearsals for a new opera "The Italian Lesson" to premiere in Los Angeles June 2023. Further down the pike, she is engaged by the Olney Theatre Center to star in their 2024 production of Ken Ludwig's "Lend Me a Soprano", a play with music in which she will have the opportunity to do some classical singing AND screwball comedy in the same show!