Twenty-year-old Graduating Senior is an Above-Title Producer On Neil LaBute’s “Reasons To Be Pretty”
Rachel Helson, a twenty-year-old senior at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, made Broadway history when she became the youngest TONY- Award®-nominated producer of a play when Neil LaBute’s Reasons To Be Pretty was named a nominee for Best Play on May 5.
Helson is an above-title producer on Reasons To Be Pretty, which marks her second Broadway commercial venture; she was also an associate producer on last summer’s [title of show]. She earned her very first Broadway producing credit, however, while still an NYU freshman with a benefit performance of “The Rocky Horror Tribute” show, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Kevin Cahoon, and Kate Reinders in April 2007. The proceeds from that production benefited Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Helson recently produced a second Komen benefit, “The Pink Campaign on Broadway,” and collectively she has raised more than $100,000 for the breast cancer organization.
Through an internship at Bernard Telsey Casting, Inc., she met Tisch School alumnus Bernie Telsey (‘82), who was casting director for [title of show]. “The perspective and creativity that Rachel brings to the process of producing is both thought-provoking and invaluable. It has been refreshing to have a youthful point of view with great ideas at the table with us.” said Telsey.
Helson, a native of Louisville, KY, will receive a BFA degree in acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts on May 13, 2009. Currently, she is also working with her literary agent, Frank Weimann of Literary Group International, on her first book, What Are We Waiting For?: Permanently Redefining Youth’s Role in American Philanthropy. She is also an actor in Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic, New Voices Network and has acted with the company Off-Broadway.