Gabriele Schafer

Gabriele Schafer was born and raised in Germany educated in the US. She holds an MFA (acting) from the Yale School of Drama and a BA in Criminal Justice and in Theatre from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Along with her husband Nick Fracaro, she co-founded Thieves Theatre (thievestheatre.org), a socially engaged theater company later renamed International Culture Lab (intlculturelab.org). Her book, "The Hill" is about the years (1990-93) she and Nick spent living in a tipi in a NYC homeless encampment to commemorate the centenary of the Wounded Knee Massacre and to creatively confront the city's homelessness crisis. In 2023, they launched The Hill: A Thieves Theatre Podcast which tells the story of "the tipi on the hill" by way of their work leading up to it, their 40+ year creative partnership, and their reflections on a life lived at the intersection of art, culture, politics, and spirituality.