Yellen Award (2021); Grand Jury Prize, Barnstorm Media (2020); Jonathan Larson Grant, American Theatre Wing (2014).
Ravenous, her debut novel, was a Finalist for the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards.
Here Cooper dreamcasts the lead for an adaptation of Ravenous:
Okay, so, as a playwright, I love dreamcasting. I hadn't actually thought about who would play Breigh in a movie, but I got super excited when I saw this prompt.Visit Sara Cooper's website.
Quick summary of the book: Ravenous is about a pregnant influencer who specializes in unboxing and takes things way, way too far. It's very stream-of-consciousness and is kind of a super intense feminist horror anticapitalist fever dream.
First of all, if I was casting for a theatre piece (which I feel I must include here, because, like I said, I'm also a playwright!), I'd cast Sherz Aletaha. She's a brilliant actress and plays comedy and tragedy with insane nuance. She's also incredibly smart, and I think she would do amazing things in this role because she would really dig into the big philosophical and sociopolitical questions asked by the book. I've been very fortunate to have worked with Sherz on a few projects and she is an absolute genius. I think she'd be the perfect Breigh Marie because she'd be hilarious but she'd also play her with compassion, which is important to me.
I also would cast Sherz in the movie, but, since she mostly does theatre, I'm going to dreamcast a film-specific actor, too. Stephanie Beatriz would be amazing as Breigh. She is so incredibly funny and also brilliant at playing intense and smart, and she's got such great charisma and on-screen presence that you love her even when a character acts badly (which Breigh definitely does).
--Marshal Zeringue
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