Laley Lippard is a director, producer, dramaturg, and educator committed to championing new work across forms, developing new plays and the next generation of theater artists, and creating events that challenge injustice. As a director, her World Premieres include These Mortal Hosts by Eric Coble at Cleveland Play House; All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Rupert Holmes on a three-year national tour; Keys Wallet Phone Dignity by Sheldon Scott; In the Middle of the Fields by Deirdre Kinahan at Solas Nua and Round House Theatre; Pure Shock Value by Matt Pelfry with Killing My Lobster; Everything Is Performance, devised by the ensemble at UMBC; and Mermaid Hour by David Valdes at Actors Theatre of Charlotte as a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere.

Lippard has worked internationally developing new plays and performances including Paradise Play by Sheldon Scott and Laley Lippard at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and The Kennedy Center; A Tempest, adapted by the company, at Brave World Theater V.I.; Caro Dubberly’s A Modern Guide to Possession; Amy Claussen’s Maybe She Dies at the Kennedy Center; Alix Sobel’s Miriam at Theater J; Inda Craig-Galván’s Welcome to Matteson! at Kitchen Dog Theater; the Midwest premiere of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect at Dobama Theatre; Kira Rockwell’s Oh, To Be Pure Again; and Tim J. Lord’s On Every Link a Heart Does Dangle; or, Owed at the Kennedy Center. Additional directing credits include Steppenwolf Theatre Company (The Glass Menagerie), Virginia Stage Company (Grounded), foolsFURY Theater Company (Big Love), Seaside Repertory Theatre (Art and Proof), and Greenbelt Arts Center (Shylock, The Jew of Venice). Additional artistic collaborations include work with HowlRound Theatre Commons, the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage, Guthrie Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Court Theatre, and Rorschach Theatre. 

Development work as a dramaturg and deviser includes collaborations with One Year Lease Theater Company, Kennedy Center for the Arts, Alliance Theatre, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Playwrights' Foundation, Magic Theatre, Z Space, Intersection for the Arts, Just Theatre, and the University of Maryland BC. Lippard has also served on literary and reading committees for organizations including Playwrights’ Foundation, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Playwrights' Center, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Her site specific work has been noted in The New York Times (The Smuggler with Solas Nua) and she has directed two feature films, one of which premiered in NYC’s 1st Irish Festival (an adaptation of In the Middle of the Fields, US premiere). As a writer, Lippard has been published in Makeshift Chicago Stages: A Century of Theater and Performance, adapted several classic works for the stage, and co-written Paradise Play with Sheldon Scott, in workshop at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

Lippard has trained extensively in physical theater, working in movement theater with SITI Company, Mary Overlie, Stephen Wangh, and other experimental movement/dance companies during her years as a company member with foolsFURY in San Francisco. Recently, she participated in a research, training, and development immersion throughout India, Japan and Greece studying Suzuki, Viewpoints, Taiko Drumming, Noh, Kabuki, Konnakol, Kathakali, Odissi and clowning in creation and devising of Ellen MacLaughlin’s Oedipus in ancient sites and theaters across Greece with OYL Theater Company. 

As a producer, Lippard co-founded and served as executive producer of the Chicago Home Theater Festival, a five-year citywide artistic network designed to bring together interdisciplinary artists, community leaders, youth, and neighbors to celebrate neighborhood culture through communal meals, transformative art, and direct social engagement. Each night, participants would tour a neighborhood, share a home-cooked meal, view a diversity of performances in bedrooms, rooftops, and basements, and envision ways to disrupt injustice through direct action, conversation, and active presence. The festival centered collaboration, accessibility, and equity, prioritizing artists and participants who identify as LGBTQ+, BIPOC, women and femmes, migrants, and people with disabilities. 

Currently, Lippard serves as the Co-Producing Artistic Director of Brave World Theater V.I. on a reimagining of The Tempest. Founded in response to the devastation experienced on St. Thomas in 2017 and the lack of any theater on island for 6 years, Brave World seeks to rebuild the local theater ecosystem and ground performance in local culture, language, and lived experience. Through partnerships with professional and community artists, Reichhold Center affiliates, The Forum, ElevateWi, Antilles School, and regional high schools, the company fosters intergenerational storytelling, mentorship, and artistic capacity-building while engaging critically with themes including colonial legacy, migration, environmental change, and cultural celebration.

In Washington, DC, Lippard served as interim Creative Producer for The Welders, a playwright-centered producing company. During the COVID quarantine, Lippard developed, curated and produced over 30 events for the DC theater community including Creative Conversations, Peace Cafes, and more with local and international scholars, artists, community leaders, and change-makers with a focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Events included a series in resonance with The Till Trilogy by Ifa Bayeza titled “Encountering Emmett Series” with Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch and “At The Border Lands Series” which included a Peace Cafe and Creative Conversation on artists making healing work at points of conflict Additional producing work includes programming Z/Magic Mondays at Magic Theatre as an Artistic Associate.

Lippard earned an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University, studying with Michael Rohd, Jessica Thebus, Anna Shapiro, and Mary Zimmerman, among many other incredible educators. Lippard is a member of the National Directors Fellowship — a partnership among the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, National New Play Network, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and the Kennedy Center — as well as the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. 

Her teaching, workshop, and directing engagements include Stanford University, Northwestern University, Kenyon College, Hampshire College, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the Case Western Reserve University MFA Acting Program, and Randolph College MFA Program. Lippard’s academic service includes serving on the committee for Fulbright English Teaching Assistant applicants supporting individually designed study and research programs; participation on the Phi Beta Kappa faculty committee supporting academic excellence and freedom of thought in the arts and sciences; and facilitation of The Center for the Study of American Democracy’s MLK Day of Dialogue discussion featuring Danielle Allen and her lecture, “Bridging the Impasse: 21st Century Practices for a Stronger Democracy.” Lippard has also designed community-engaged learning coursework in partnership with Engaged Learning programs to strengthen collaboration between institutions of higher education and surrounding communities through public-facing scholarship and civic engagement. 

As a member of an LGBTQ+ Advisory Committee, Lippard worked to advance inclusive campus culture through policy advocacy, interdepartmental programming, and resource development supporting LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff. Her training and engagement with EDI practice includes Consent & Body Autonomy: Collaborative, Improvised, & Immersive Spaces with Francesca Betancort; Trauma Informed Practices and Intimacy Facilitation; Title IX and Sexual Harassment Prevention, Implicit Bias Awareness, LGBTQ+/ Pronoun and Gender Awareness; Bystander Intervention Training, DC Peace Team; Restorative Justice: Building Power & Community, Barnard Center for Research on Women with Bilphena Yahwon as part of the Janine Soleil Abolitionist Youth Organizing Institute; Non-Cooperation Theory + Practice with Free DC; and Nonviolent Communication and Political Discourse, Kristen Wall, Washington, DC.