Sallie Merkel goes by “Merkel,” a name she inherited from her con-artist grandfather, who was adopted by some Merkels. Like her grandfather, Merkel pretends to be other people. Possibly unlike her grandfather, she tries—by pretending to be other people—to embody and give voice to multivalent and unfixed truths of the human condition, to make meaning and mystery out of our lived experience in a way that words or images alone cannot. In her own unfixed-ness Merkel inhabits many roles: actor, writer, director, teacher, witch…

Together with Mireya Lucio, Merkel is the co-creator of Emotional Labor Co., a feminist, multi-media production company. Their most recent endeavor, The Commons (a public-access style morning talk show for witches, by witches) is available OTV and Vimeo for your streaming pleasure!

Merkel’s original works include, “The Age of Eris,” a slacker noir closet drama, performed by Merkel (and various plants, hats and other objects) in her bedroom for an audience of four (vaccinated) people at a time in October of 2021. Audiences described Merkel as “a feminist Bo Burnham,” and the piece as “a defiant investigation of what it means to take play very seriously right now.” As well as the four-act play The Real Work, developed with director Ásta Bennie Hostetter in workshops at The Hearth and Target Margin Theater.

She appears as a performer in countless projects by other people. Here she is in the music video for Johanna Hedva’s “Beauty (feat. Simone Weil)”.

She has taught feminist improv, cultivating a non-hierarchal, consent-oriented and liberation-driven pedagogy, at CalArts, the Women’s Center for Creative Work and various locations across Los Angeles. For twelve years she taught playwriting and screenwriting to high school students at the UVA Young Writers Workshop.

Merkel is also a former competitive jump-roper.