KELSEY TORSTVEIT

ABOUT KELSEY TORSTVEIT

 

Kelsey Torstveit was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona.  She received her B.F.A. in Drama from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where she studied at The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institue.  At NYU she was lucky enough to work with director Robert Moss (Founder Playwrights Horizons) on Dinner at Eight, Meghan Finn (Associate Director Blasted NYC premiere, AD of The Tank) on Ivanov, and  Johanna McKeon (Associate Director Grey Gardens on Broadway, American Idiot on Broadway, Hedwig on Broadway) in the Alumni production of A Hatful of Rain, which traveled to Warsaw, Poland as the representative play from America as part of the ITSeLF Theatre Festival.

 

Kelsey has worked in NYC (14th St. Y, 45th Street Theatre, staged and artistic readings at Roundabout and at MTC Studios). She has worked regionally in Vermont (Fable Theatre), Massachusetts (Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theater), Capital Repertory Theatre(Albany), and spent a season at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park as a member of the Bruce E. Coyle Acting Intern Company for their 2014-2015 where she understudied 7 mainstage roles and starred in two of their Off The Hill Productions. 

 

She produced and starred in the world premiere of Dennis Bush's one woman show Mouthy Bitch which was named a Critic's Pick by CityBeat Magazine at the 2015 Cincinnati Fringe Festival.

​

In the Fall of 2016, she assistant directed Theater at Woodshill's inaugural performance of Much Ado About Nothing, starring John Cariani in Sauquoit, NY.  She directed and played Dogberry in the subsequent NYC production.

​

In the summer of 2017 she was awarded a Playwriting fellowship by Byrdcliffe Art Colony to write her one act The Octopus, which had its first reading at the colony's Open Studios event.

 

In the Fall of 2017, she returned to W.H.A.T. to play The Woman in Jeffry Hatcher's two person adaptation of The Turn of the Screw and was voted one of the favorite performances of 2017 by The Cape Cod Times. 

​

In January 2018, she joined the faculty at The Lee Strasberg Institute, as an acting teacher in the Young Actors Strasberg program.

​

Her one act with music, Lonelyhearts, co-concieved and written with composer David Bird went up at Project Q in New York City late April 2018, featuring the TAK Ensemble.

​

In March of 2018, Kelsey returned to Capital Repertory Theatre and played Edith in Blithe Spirit.  In the summer of 2018, she originated the role of Meredith in the World Premiere production of ...Where You Eat by Dennis Bush as a part of the Fresh Fruit Festival at The Wild Project in the Lower East Side.  In the late summer of 2018 she produced and starred in the World Premiere of her first full-length play LARVAE at Alchemical Theatre Studios in NYC.  

​

Winter of 2018 she was awarded an ArtsUniverse Scholarship to attend the IUGTE Physical Theatre Workshop and International Theatre Conference in Leibnitz, Austria. 

​

In 2019, she begins teaching the New York University B.F.A. students at the Institute. 

​

In 2021, she has produced a NYFA sponsored short film, Two Women Talking by a Gate, which will have its premiere in the spring of 2022.

​

She is in the process of completing her Masters in Theatre Studies at Montclair State University. She continues to teach acting full time at the Lee Strasberg Institute.

​

Proud member of Actors' Equity Association.