Filmmaker/Leading Lady, Sarah E Shively holds an MFA from the Professional Actors Training Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a BA from Oberlin College where she majored in Theatre and minored in Spanish.

September 2008 marked the official launch of her company, Open Sesame Productions, Inc; OSP is a media consulting and producing company. She and her partner guide organizations seeking video content through the process of creating curricula and managing pre-production, production and post-production conditions leading to video product for in-house use or for multiple platform broadcasting.

A 2005 recipient of a MacDowell Colony Filmmaker's Fellowship, her short film, CONTEMPLATING EMILY (Experimental Film Agreement SAG) traveled the film festival circuit for the 2006/2007 season premiering at Los Angles' Outfest 2006 and including the Short Film Corner at the Marche du Cannes, Cannes Film Festival 2007. Most recently the short screened at Anthology Film Archives in New York. www.contemplatingemily.com.

Ms Shively was also awarded a 2006 Master Screenwriters' grant from the International Film and Television Workshops. Her prior study at the Workshops was as an actor in 2003. In 2007 she traveled to Taiwan thanks to a professional development grant from PSC/CUNY to begin production talks with the film community in Taipei as she is developing a feature script of her film project.

In the theatre world, she was the featured character in the OBIE award-winning video that appeared in the play Talk performed at the Public Theatre in spring of 2002. Her work as an actress took her to Tamaulipas, Mexico in 2001 as part of Kadmus Theatre Studio from Bennington, VT to represent the United States at the Festival Intercontinental de Teatro por Las Culturas del Mundo. In addition to having performed in theatre productions in New York City, she also worked for two seasons with the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in 2001, 2002 where she helmed the faire in the role of Queen Elizabeth I.

Her history of involving herself in projects that focus on cross-cultural awareness includes having served as president of the International Club in high school and her current position teaching in the American Language Program at Columbia University.

She is also the Facilitator and Director of As Soon As I Find My Voice, a writing and performance project that brings diverse people together to create an original performance piece. This course ran most recently via Hunter College's College Now program with high school students from Manhattan International High School during the 2007/2008 season. In the Fall 2008 course, the high schoolers created their own short films as part of the Voice and Vision Video Workshop, a spin-off of As Soon As I Find My Voice.

In addition to her SAG membership, Sarah is a member of Actors Equity Association and is a former certified Actor/Combatant in the Society of American Fight Directors. Sarah is also a swimming enthusiast and enjoys yoga, running and being out-of-doors.