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Meet Lauren Reinhard, MFA Theatre ’16 Theatre Program Manager, MFA Theatre Program

“I work professionally in theatre and I love everything I get to do, but working here with these students feels like a space of boundless possibility. It makes me really proud of the kind of artists and humans we’re sending out into the industry.”
Collage showing a smiling person with glasses, followed by three images of expressive dance performances.

Background

Education
Lauren earned her BFA at Long Island University and her MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College in 2016.

Experience
A director, intimacy choreographer, and playwright in New York City, Reinhard has taught acting, directing, solo performance, devising, theatrical intimacy, and performance art at LIU Post and Sarah Lawrence College. Selected directing credits include Company, Rhinoceros, Spring Awakening, Urinetown, The Love of the Nightingale, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Orson’s Shadow, The Inferno Project, House of Yes, Trojan Women 2.0, Rumors, ‘night Mother, and The Changeling. As a playwright, her plays have been performed in and around New York City. Lauren has served on the advisory and literary board of Rapscallion Theatre Collective, as Director of Development for TheatreRats, and has worked in casting for Horizon Theatre Repertory. She is an audition coach in Manhattan and is a member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab, SDC, and The Magdalena Project, an international network of women in theatre. She is the founder of Lauren Reinhard Performance Works and currently serves on the executive board of the acting focus group of ATHE (Association of Theatre in Higher Education.)

Interests

Education/Research: trauma informed, consent based, and culturally responsive, inclusive pedagogical practices.

Creative: In my creative work I am preoccupied with new epochs of feminine and queer mythology–exploring what is codified and understood and exploding that into something mysterious and new. Drawing on familiar images and movement and archetypal scenes, I seek to animate the tension between image and felt experience. I challenge myself to unpack these new mythologies in a theatrical context through music, dance, language, and a deeply personal lens. Building this kind of beating heart within the structure of each work is the challenge and the obligation that grounds me as an artist.

Personal: I love traveling, cooking, making lists and then crossing things off lists, poetry, lazily wandering art museums, cool coffee shops, collecting vinyl, beach towns, great books, West Wing, and wandering different neighborhoods around NYC with my little family.

Lauren Answers Your Questions

As a graduate of SLC's MFA in Theatre program, what does it mean to you to work with theatre students here today?

I loved my time in grad school at Sarah Lawrence, so I was really excited to come back as the theatre program manager. This program is the most community- and care-centered program I’ve ever worked in. Teaching and learning in this kind of environment is nourishing in so many ways, and it means a lot to me to work with the students here today. I work professionally in theatre and I love everything I get to do, but working here with these students feels like a space of boundless possibility. It makes me really proud of the kind of artists and humans we’re sending out into the industry.

You work closely with prospective students who are considering applying to the MFA Theatre program at Sarah Lawrence.  What are they most interested in knowing about the program? What do you tell them?

Students have a lot of different questions but at the core what they always really want to know is whether this is going to be a place where they can grow. Having gone through the program myself, I always feel confident in giving the answer that it is. I always want prospective students to know that this program is unique because we want them to be holistic artists. We don’t just allow them to take classes outside of their primary area of interest, we encourage it. Because of this, the students who graduate from this program are artists who can create their own work, be effective collaborators, and make opportunities happen for themselves.

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