Rivka Eckert is a community cultural development theatre-maker interested in the arts as a means of cross-cultural communication. Eckert studied Theatre Education and Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College, and earned her MFA in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University. Eckert has taught Theatre and English in prisons, high schools, and middle schools and worked with the Peace Corps in Samoa and Liberia. In her current position in the Theatre and Dance Department at SUNY Potsdam, Eckert teaches Applied Theatre, Directing, Acting/Scene Study, and Play Interpretation and Analysis.