LAUREN LUDWIG | Director

Lauren Ludwig is an award-winning director and writer working in film, television, and theater. An AFI Directing Workshop for Women alumna, Ludwig has developed multiple television projects with various partners including FX, NBC Universal, Participant Media and truTV. Her television work focuses on comedy. She directed episodes of the Sony series ROB RIGGLE’S SKI MASTER ACADEMY and co-created and directed the sketch comedy show PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE HISTORY for truTV. Ludwig is a founding member and the director of Lost Moon Radio, an award-winning Los Angeles comedy group that has performed at SF Sketchfest, UCB Los Angeles, the Broad Stage, South Coast Rep and New York’s Rockwood Music Hall. Ludwig’s first feature 5 PILGRIMS will be released this fall.

An experienced stage director, Ludwig is a founding member of the immersive theater company Capital W. Her adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” staged in a cargo van, “Hamlet-Mobile,” was included in the anthology “Best Plays from American Theater Festivals 2015.” Her work with Capital W has won Best Overall Immersive Work at Hollywood Fringe and Best Game Design at IndieCade. Ludwig is a passionate educator and has spoken about immersive work and experience design at venues across the U.S., including the Immersive Design Summit, the University of Southern California, and the University of Illinois. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.

RACHEL SUMMERS | Manager

Rachel Summers is a filmmaker and artist from the land of 10,000 lakes. Her deep love of community allowed her to explore the practice of Theater of the Oppressed and co-found the first social justice theater troupe at Hamline University. In 2014, she was selected as an Emerging Writer’s Fellow for the Givens Foundation of African-American Literature where she began to cultivate her distinct voice and vision. Summers seeks to reclaim and reframe blackness on screen. She is a recent graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Production MFA Program, where her thesis documentary, BEYOND / BELOW, was nominated for an industry award at USC’s First Look Festival in 2019.

Her work has also led her to moonlight as programmatic, fellowship and festival support in the Outreach and Inclusion Department at Sundance Institute. Summers has solidified herself as a skilled director, editor and storyteller, and her best story is about the miraculous gift of shaking hands with Beyoncé. She currently lives in Los Angeles, 30 minutes from an ocean she rarely sees.