Saffron Henke

Biography

Saffron Henke is an associate professor of Theatre and head of performance at Colorado State University. Previously, Saffron was at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she established The Brink Theatre Company, and still serves as its artistic director. She has worked as a professional actor, director, and educator.

She received her M.F.A. from the Professional Training Program at the University of Washington, during which she also performed with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, Seattle Children’s Theatre, and the Recklinghausen Ruhrfestspiele in Germany. She then joined the acting company at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where she devised and directed The Pale Fire Project. As a resident acting company member at the Sacramento Theatre Company, she was also a member of the STC-2, a 10-month young professionals training conservatory. With STC-2, she developed and directed The Tale, a rock musical about Greek mythology that toured Greece and headlined the Mioulia Festival. Her last West Coast stop was in Los Angeles, where she taught (University of Southern California, Center Theatre Group, A Noise Within Theatre), assistant directed The Heretic Mysteries with David Bridel, and expanded her on-camera resume, including a web series for HBO’s True Blood, and the part of Fiona in the online series for Web Therapy.

A Midwest native, she has worked with Working Group Theatre and Riverside Theatre as an actor and voice/text coach. She has directed at Coe and Augustana Colleges (Women in the Shadow, Metamorphoses, The Bock-Eye), and taught and directed at St. Ambrose University (Les Liaisons Dangereuses), Cornell College (In the Next Room/Vibrator Play), ChiARTS, and the Englert School of Performing Arts (Bugsy Malone). Most recently, she assistant directed George De La Pena in Music IC’s production of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat. Recent acting highlights include Arkadina in a film version of The Seagull, and a meditation guru in the feature film, Being. Her full-length digital theatre/directorial film debut of Jordan Tannahill's Concord Floral was also released in 2020.

A longtime member of the Actor’s Equity Association, Saffron is also the recipient of the 2005 Princess Grace Foundation Honorarium for Emerging Artists, an SAFD certified actor/combatant and yoga teacher (200hr RYT). She is also the Theatrical Intimacy coordinator for the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance at CSU.