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Heidi Miami Marshall

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About

 

DIRECTOR:

Heidi Miami Marshall’s career spans over 30 years as Director, Casting Director, Acting Coach, and Acting Studio Owner.

Heidi has received awards and fellowships for her directing in theater and film, most notably the The Drama League’s DIRECTOR PROJECT (NY) and American Film Institute’s DIRECTING WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN (alongside Jennifer Getzinger, Sîan Heder, Annetta Marion, Anna McRoberts, Valerie Weiss, and Najla Zaidi).

Heidi has coached on countless films and TV shows, including Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize winner, In The Summers, and worked closely with directors including Chloé Zhao, John Turturro, Baz Luhrmann, and Frank Oz. She has directed on Broadway shows THE ADDAMS FAMILY, Baz Luhrmann’s LA BOHEME, and THE COLOR PURPLE. Renowned director Baz Luhrmann says, “All of Heidi Marshall’s work has led me to see that she’s a director of first rate talent and ability.”

A latest short film, S.P.I.C. by Johnny Sánchez, garnered numerous awards, including the Cinema Writing Award and the Best of Fest Award at Blackbird Film Festival (2024), the Best Ensemble Cast Award at SoCal Int’l Film Festival (2024), Best Cinematography Award at Chain NYC Film Festival (2024), Best Female Director Award at FOLCS Short Film Festival (2024), Best Multicultural Film at SPE Media (2024). Her short film MUSCLE played at over 30 festivals worldwide and also won numerous awards (including Best of Fest, Best Narrative Short, Best Actress). She directed a web-series, MORE THAN by Jinn S.Kim for LAByrinth Theater Co. Her film, underneath it all, is finishing post and is about to be released into festivals in 2026.

Her first Feature Film to direct is in development, and the script (AMERICAN BUBBLE written by Johnny Sánchez and Khalil Kain, starring Jade Pettyjohn and Julianne Nicholson) has already won numerous screenplay awards.

Heidi’s career began as lead Casting Director on RENT for Broadway and all National and International Tours at The Telsey Office. She cast over 70 productions on Broadway, Film, TV, and Commercials. Heidi is a proud acting coach and acting studio owner over the past decades. This has all contributed to her reputation as a true “actor’s director”.

Heidi is particularly interested in hearing the most quiet voices in the room and gathering these stories onto film with her husband and collaborator, Johnny Sánchez.

 

For acting coach bio, click here.

My Journey

First of all, yes. Miami is my birth name.

I wasn’t born in Miami, or conceived in Miami. I just have really creative parents who were hippies and simply loved the sound of it. Heidi Miami Marshall. For them, it was about highlighting uniqueness and invoking imagination. It’s all in the words.

The simple lesson that my name has shown me is that the words we speak our entire lives can truly manifest into realities. In my adult years, I decided to add my middle name to my professional identity. Guess where I suddenly started getting directing work? In Miami.

I have learned to be conscious about what I want to manifest, because it will come true.

Throughout my career I have often felt like I was just at the right place at the right time. I thought I was just lucky to have started casting with Bernie Telsey at the exact moment when RENT was about to alter and reinvigorate the landscape of musical theater. I thought I was just lucky that I got assigned to cast Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway debut. I thought I was just lucky that Broadway producers remembered me after I left casting and hired me to do acting coaching for celebrities. And, I thought I was just lucky every time a project fell into my lap to direct.

But, ya know what? It isn’t just luck. It has been a lot of hard work to give attention to my passions and to build relationships with intention and meaningfulness.

One action led to another. It all adds up, often in mysterious ways. But none of it happens without taking action of some kind. Even just showing up! And, saying yes.

You are planting seeds for growth all of the time.

Actors are trained on the functionality of the industry very early, but young Directors are typically left to just roam and create (without budgets).  As any young graduate thinks, I was ready to direct on Broadway after graduation from Carnegie Mellon’s conservatory theater directing program and was waiting for that luck to appear… 

While figuring out how to be a director, I added casting to my “curious-about-that-career” checklist. I actually had no clue what a Casting Director was until I needed to figure out how to make a living. I heard about the profession in college, but didn’t know anyone who did it. I had only clocked that it sounded pretty cool to watch actors all day. A year after graduation, casting was mentioned to me again by a mentor, Jon Jory, at Actors Theater of Louisville (ATL).

He told the 23-year-old Heidi to “figure out what you are going to do until you are in your 30s, and then MAYBE someone will take you seriously as a Director.” I felt deflated. He then suggested, “Go meet Casting Director Bernie Telsey, who is here at this new play festival.” I did. Soon after, when I moved to NYC and was overwhelmed immediately by survival needs, a colleague from ATL called and told me she heard that a casting office was looking for an assistant. I interviewed, still not knowing anything about casting, and within a few short months, I was casting on Broadway for. . . Bernie Telsey.

Right place, right time . . . but you have to say yes to it!

Thankfully, I said yes to the suggestions and yes to the job.

An early career event that shaped me the most was my time casting for the mega0hit musical RENT when I was 24 years old!  When the composter/lyricist Jonathan Larson suddenly died, my career suddenly launched. I had been working with Bernie already, but then due to the sudden and immense needs of the hit show and national tours, I quickly became an official Casting Director.

But here’s the funny thing – I am not a musician, don’t read music and didn’t even know much about musical theater. But I figured it out! I figured out how to find the hidden talents for this very special show. I auditioned over 40,000 hopefuls! In the end, I figured out that I had a talent for casting.

Casting RENT was the greatest gift of personal and professional growth. Every day, I learned so much from the talents that walked inside my rooms. I saw hearts worn on sleeves, risky and bold choices (some you will never believe), and lots of passionate people fighting for a dream. I was changed forever.

No choices are permanent.

I loved casting. And yet, casting just wasn’t my goal. Remember, I wanted to direct! One of my last casting gigs was for Baz Luhmann on his Broadway debut of Puccini’s La Bohème. I was already reaching my creative ceiling as a CD and hungry to expand again as a Director. Immersed in the world of Baz’ exploding creativity, my deep-rooted Director urges were resurfacing. I knew I couldn’t stay in casting anymore.

I was reignited in my creativity and dared to make a career shift. I started telling people that I was ready to move back towards directing. One person heard about my revived goals and that was Baz – he asked me to work with him in a directing capacity on his Broadway production. Fortunately, since I had no real game plan in mind and no savings, this was a great idea!

Falling down opens up an opportunity to get real with the dream.

Despite tremendous reviews, La Bohème quickly closed on Broadway. I found myself unemployed for the first time in my professional artistic career. Oops—I had left my steady career in casting. With no real savings, but a desire to do work that I love, I listened hard again for my passions. Ah yes, I heard it again. That faint little whisper which I had quieted while I lived in the theater world . . .

The cat will get out of the bag.

I always secretly loved… shhh… F I L M. It was kinda sacrilegious to mention while going to a theater conservatory. I would sneak out of my theater directing training at Carnegie Mellon and go to the art house cinema – I loved indie and foreign films so much. I also managed to take some filmmaking classes at a nearby college. 

After La Bohème closed on Broadway, I headed to the American Film Institute and jumped headfirst into film! When I was sitting on set looking at the monitor, I had an “aha!” moment that I will never forget. This feeling washed over me: “this is where I am supposed to be.”

I so deeply loved the intimacy of film and felt right at home. It reminded me of my favorite part of theater – the rehearsal room, up close and intimate.

With a camera, I felt that I had arrived at what I had been manifesting all along: deep intimate work with actors. Through the lens, I can be inside the soul of the actor, the character’s internal life. Finally, I had freed my love for film!

My love for theater and film, actors and visuals, music and silence, all of this shapes how I coach, teach, and direct. It ALL makes sense now.

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