Quetta Carpenter

LaQuetta Carpenter is a professional stage and screen actor, director, and playwright. She earned a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies from Southern Utah University and a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from The Pennsylvania State University. She taught at the University of Texas at Austin for 12 years before becoming a Boilermaker, where she served as Head of Acting and was an affiliate at the Center for Women and Gender Studies (CWGS) and the South Asia Institute (SAI). 

A large focus of Carpenter's research is on gender in the works of William Shakespeare. In 2016, she formed The Factory, a collective of actors and makers devoted to crafting new plays using Shakespeare's text that allow for greater inclusion and legibility. Her first piece, Caesar, received its world premiere at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival in 2019, and she is currently in development on Joan II, a mashup of The Merchant of Venice and Love's Labour's Lost based on the history of Joan II of Navarre. 

Carpenter has directed at Phoenix Theatre (Phoenix, AZ), National Academy of Performing Arts (Karachi, Pakistan), Illinois Shakespeare Festival (Normal, IL) and the Mercantia 31° Festival in Certaldo, Italy. At UT Austin, Carpenter directed Our Town, Wellesley Girl, Speaking in Tongues, The Sparrow, Interview and Henry IV, and served as co-producer of the Cohen New Works Festival.

Television acting credits include Paper Girls (Amazon), The Big Leap (Fox), Power Book IV: Force (STARZ), Chicago Med (NBC), American Crime (ABC), Revolution (NBC), and The Leftovers (HBO), and feature films include El Paso Project, The Price on Henry James' Head, South Loop, Happily After, Sweet Sixteen, and Schizcago. Stage credits include Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Southwest Shakespeare, Shakespeare Sedona, Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre, Seacoast Repertory Theatre, Pennsylvania Centre Stage, New Paltz Repertory, Performance Network, Nearly Naked Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, ShawChicago, Childsplay, and Phoenix Theatre.

Carpenter is a proud member of Actor's Equity Association (AEA) and the Screen Actors' Guild/American Federation of Radio, Television and Film Artists (SAG/AFTRA).