Hailing from beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia, Emerson is a Brooklyn based actor, director, producer, and teaching artist who uses joy as his creative engine to express basic human emotions according to Mark Rothko, “tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.”

Emerson believes in learning from many different sources: it’s why he’s studied the different Stanislavski derivative acting techniques (NYU The MSNR Studio, The Atlantic Acting School, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, The Stella Adler Studio of Acting) . Art making is problem solving, and the more tools you have in your toolbox, the more problems you can solve. Emerson prides himself on having a myriad of methods and an ability to tailor the right approach for the right project. His artistic passion lies in the intersection of arts justice, site specific performance, and Shakespeare.

Favorite acting credits include: Leontes in The Winter’s Tale (The Pop-Up Players), Dromio of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors (The Stella Adler Studio’s Company Tour), Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet (Blue Ridge Young Actors Guild), Sorin in The Seagull, and Brutus in his devised piece based on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, The Last of All the Romans (Foul Fiend Theatre Troupe). Favorite directing credits include Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (Independent Production) and Sophocles’ Antigone (The Pop-Up Players).

Outside of acting, directing, or producing, Emerson loves video games, both prestige and trashy reality tv, seeing plays, hanging out with friends, collecting Pokémon cards, and being with his cat, Klaus.

Emerson Helmbrecht