Rachel Sklar

Biography

Rachel Sklar is an award-winning writer & lyricist based in New York. She is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop where she most recently presented selections from a musical adaptation of the film “Hustlers” (lyrics), original musical "Taking Off!" (book)(New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center & others) and an updated Epstein Files project. She was most recently as a finalist in the 2026 Erma Bombeck Humor Writing Competition and a 2025 winner of the Headliner Award (First Place, Magazines Speciality News Coverage), as well as a multiple Mirror Award finalist (media reporting) and People's Choice winner. She also has contributed jokes to two of President Barack Obama’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner speeches (with her contributions highlighted across national media), as well as for Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau.

As a writer and performer, Rachel and/or her work has appeared in musical, comedy and musical comedy shows at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, Sixth & I, Caroline’s, UCB, SXSW, 92nd St. Y uptown and downtown, Ars Nova, 14th St. Y, and Second City Toronto. Onscreen, she cameo’d in the critically-acclaimed web series "Leap Year," the indie film "Spencer," TruTV's "Impractical Jokers" and won Best Actress in the 2004 24-Hour Movie Festival in her category, which was “Western,” but it’s completely un-Googleable so you’ll have to just trust that she wouldn’t make up something that random. Rachel was also briefly but memorably a waitress at Marie’s Crisis in NYC’s West Village, where she was Audrey to many a Seymour.

Before all that she was a lawyer, and before that she was Head of Drama at Camp Winnebagoe in Ontario, Canada, where she was most proud of adapting Grease 2 for the stage (one word: rollerblades, which might actually be two words).

In her day job, she is a writer on media, politics, gender and culture and a sought-after consultant on strategy, comms and growth. She is the co-founder of TheLi.st, a network & media platform for awesome women, that was acquired by New Power Media in 2020. Previously she was a founding editor at the Huffington Post and Mediaite, and has both written for and been quoted as an expert by national media including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, Mashable, The Daily Beast, InStyle, Elle and CNN.com. She was the co-host of “The Salon” on The Jewish Channel from 2009 - 2015, co-creator and host of "Have A Drink With," The Daily Beast's first video interview show (2010), co-creator and co-host of the "Office Hours" video show & podcast on Mediaite (2009 - 2011), has been a speaker at numerous conferences and event (SXSW, TEDx Poynter, TechCrunch Disrupt, Bloomberg Tech) and has appeared frequently across national and international TV networks as a commentator on news, politics, tech and culture.

Lately she's been a stage mom to her amazing 11-year old daughter, Ruby, who seems reluctant to put on the same old star-spangled costume and sing "Let Me Entertain You" again. Weird.