From CHS to the World Stage: Darielle Shandler’s (’09) Story

After transferring to CHS, Darielle Shandler ’09 found the encouragement and creativity that shaped her path forward. Now based in New York City, she works as a stage manager in theatre. Not only does she travel across the country and abroad with her productions, she also serves as Operations Manager at Repair the World, a Jewish non-profit focused on community service and social impact. We had the amazing opportunity to catch up with Darielle, who shared how her time at CHS sparked her confidence, creativity, and lifelong love of learning. From theatre classes at CHS to becoming an arts professional, Darielle reflects on how the lessons and community she found at CHS continue to shape her journey today.

One of my fondest memories of growing up is my time at Community High. Without a doubt, I credit CHS as the beginning of my journey to become the person I am today. I had always loved school and learning, but during my first two years in high school, I found myself closed off and uninspired. After transferring to CHS in my junior year, I gained confidence from the smaller classes and encouraging teachers, and expanded my creativity through writing and theatre classes I didn’t have access to at my public high school.

I went on to graduate with a BA in Theatre Arts with minors in Arts Administration and Jewish Studies from Drew University in Madison, NJ. I’ll always remember my freshman seminar teacher commenting that CHS truly prepared me for college level writing. During my time at Drew, I participated in thirteen productions, as stage manager, director, light designer, and more. The first half of my junior year, I studied abroad in Israel, during which I also got to travel to England and Italy.

In 2014, I fulfilled a long held dream to move to New York City to pursue working in the theatre. Since then, I have had many theatre jobs from working box office, associate producing a summer festival, and light designing. However, I am mainly a stage manager and have traveled with my work around the country and the world. Traveling to a theatre festival in Zurich with a show (and winning first prize) is one of the highlights of my career. You can see production photos from many of my shows on my website.

Since 2021, I’ve worked with Happenstance Theater who are a devising ensemble company based out of the DC/Baltimore area. In October, I stage managed their show Dreadful Episodes at 59E59 Theaters in NY, and then stage managed JUXTAPOSE at Baltimore Theater Project in December ’25. We’re doing another run of JUXTAPOSE in NY in this month (January ’26). I’m so proud to work with such a talented ensemble.

Outside of my theatre work, I am the Operations Manager at Repair the World, a Jewish non-profit that connects young adults to community service opportunities, meeting urgent needs like food insecurity, housing, and education while building community and belonging. Working at Repair for the past three years, I’ve learned how we can live our values through our work and our actions, and I’ve grown into a leader and trusted colleague across teams at the organization. I also get weekly study sessions with a Jewish educator, which has led to ongoing Jewish text study becoming a staple of my life. So much so that I’ve now participated in two summer learning programs, one in Jerusalem in 2023 and another in Prague this past summer.

In my spare time, I am an avid reader and book collector. My library currently stands at 1400 books (and counting). I read mainly fiction – speculative, Jewish, historical, magical realism, YA – but there’s also some memoirs and other non-fiction thrown in there too.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful story, Darielle! Keep up the great work, and we hope to have the pleasure of seeing one of your productions in the future.