Erica is a theater director, playwright and screenwriter.

Erica’s first year in NYC she was an intern in the costume department at The Juilliard School. She acted downtown off-off Broadway, designed costumes, assisted designers, stitched, did wardrobe.

She acted in Leigh Silverman’s solo show Brandon Teena; designed the costumes for and played Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well. She was the assistant costume designer and wardrobe on Dare Clubb’s OEDIPUS starring Frances McDormand. She assistant directed for Sir Peter Hall on Troilus and Cressida for TFANA at the American Place Theater. She sewed costumes for David Zinn, on Cider House Rules, in a closet, at the Atlantic Theater and once got locked in the building and spent the night in the stairwell. She directed her first play in 1999, an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, in a parking lot, on the lower east side. She also designed the costumes for it.

The second play she directed, As You Like It, she designed and adapted, cut for six actors and staged in a church parking lot on Stanton Street. (It received Best Direction from the NY Fringe Festival). The production moved to chashama’s 42nd Street location and was selected for the New Works Now series at The Public. Subsequently, her AYLI had a run at The Public.

The Araca Group recruited Erica to adapt and directed the hallowed classic film Debbie Does Dallas which she turned into a musical comedy. Debbie ran at The Jane Street off-Broadway and is published by DPS. Erica has since adapted and directed numerous classic plays: a musical version of Rostand’s Cyrano, in collaboration with Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner and Matt Berninger of the band The National, which she directed at The Goodspeed and Off-Broadway at The New Group. She directed and adapted her 7 school-girl adaptation of MacBeth which ran at Seattle Rep and off Broadway at the Lucille Lortel and at HTP for which she received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Revival and a Lortel nomination for Outstanding Revival; MacBeth is published by DPS.

Schmidt wrote and directed four (produced) original plays. All the Fine Boys starred Abigail Breslin, Alex Wolfe, Isabelle Fuhrman and Joe Tippet for The New Group; (published by Samuel French). The Disappear starring Hamish Linklater, Miriam Silverman, Madeline Brewer, Dylan Baker, Kelvin Harrison Jr and Anna Mirodin and LUCY starring Brooke Bloom and Lynn Collins (published by Concord Theatrical) both ran at The Minetta Lane produced by Audible. And Humor Abuse (co-created with actor Lorenzo Pisoni) for which she received a Lortel Award, played Manhattan Theatre Club, Philadelphia Theatre Company, ACT, Seattle Rep and The Taper.

She directed Tennessee Williams’s Orpheus Descending starring Maggie Siff for TFANA. Richard 2 starring Robert Sean Leonard (The Old Globe); Carnival (Paper Mill Playhouse); Turgenev’s A Month In The Country starring Taylor Schilling and Peter Dinklage (Classic Stage Company); Rent starring Mirai Moriyama (in Japanese, in Tokyo); Moliere’s Imaginary Invalid, Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya starring Taylor Schilling and Peter Dinklage, Copland’s The Tenderland and Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Sorcerer all for Bard SummerScape.

She directed numerous new play American premieres notably Gary Mitchell’s Trust, starring Ritchie Coster, for The Play Company (Callaway Award nomination); Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Obie Award winning INVASION! which had two off-Broadway runs for The Play Company and Dennis Kelly’s Taking Care Of Baby for MTC.

She has guest directed at Princeton, Vassar and six productions at The Juilliard School. She has taught at Brown/Trinity Rep, The National Theater Institute at The O’Neill and The Tepper Semester for Syracuse University.

She is a Princess Grace Award recipient.

As a screenwriter, Erica adapted her CYRANO for Working Title. MGM released Cyrano for which she received a BAFTA nomination.

Erica loves story telling.

Angela Goethals as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.