About

LAURA STANDLEY is a theatre maker and educator based in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where she is Associate Professor of Theatre at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA). She has her MFA in acting from the University of California, Irvine and a BA in Theatre from the University of Central Oklahoma. A director, choreographer, actor, dramaturge, and sound designer, Laura’s work investigates how theatre is changing and how it utilizes collage-like thinking to create moments that are compelling and new.

Laura teaches a variety of courses at MCLA, including all levels of acting and directing. Her practice seeks to develop an actor’s sense of agency and to foster a profound understanding of how an actor’s experience of self changes in relationship to their world. Combining methods inherited from her training in traditional European acting techniques with investigations in physical performance, voice, and contemporary dance, her work is based on the idea that proprioceptive awareness is fundamentally linked to our emotional life. Her practical acting research examines this ability, and develops a holistic, embodied sense of space and partners to create honest performances. Besides acting, directing, voice, and movement, she also teaches play analysis, dramaturgy, and a course examining how women have shaped theatre, why their plays are often not included in the canon, and what interventions we can make in order to increase the number of women in theatre.

As a director, her work serves as an investigation into the motivations of a playwright, a history, or an imagined future. The driving force is to amplify voices and experiences not yet heard. Her directing work is characterized by experiments with process, space, and atmosphere, as well as the intensity of the actor’s emotions and physical life. Her recent production of Maria Irene Fornés’ ‘The Summer in Gossensass,’ included a 30-minute dream-ballet of ‘Hedda Gabler,’ which she devised collaboratively with her students based on analysis of the original Ibsen text. The show was part of the Fornés Festival at MCLA, a year-long celebration of the work of Maria Irene Fornés that she curated in conjunction with The Fornés Institute’s ‘Celebrando Fornés, their national initiative honoring the life and work of the award-winning playwright.

As a choreographer, she utilizes task-based movement improvisations to build ensemble and create staging. She is versed in Viewpoints, contact improvisation, the creative activities of Pina Bausch and Frantic Assembly, period dance, ballroom, and social dance. She uses weight exchange and lifts (including group spectacle lifts) to emphasize storytelling. As an intimacy director and fight choreographer, she advocates for rehearsal practices that help communicate human intimacy and violence in a safe, technical, and creative way. She studied with Theatrical Intimacy Education to bring their consent-based, trauma-informed practices to her work. She looks for practices that create a culture of consent in rehearsals, and encourages ethical, performer-driven ways to create choreography that is compelling and dynamic.

Last year, in partnership with MOSAIC she curated MCLA’s Fornés Festival, a year-long series of events dedicated to honoring the life and legacy of Cuban American playwright, Maria Irene Fornés (1930-2018). The festival was part of the Fornés Institute’s national initiative, "Celebrando Fornés / Celebrating Fornés,” part of their “Decade of Fornés (2021-2030)” events designed to increase the visibility of Fornés’s work.

Recent collaborations include creative facilitation, dramaturgy, and fight choreography for ‘REPAIR,’ original theatre in partnership with 2nd Street, Second Chances inspired by the stories of formerly incarcertated men in Berkshire County. She played Veronique in a staged reading of the innovative new play and arts advocacy project, 'A Family Business,' by Chris Thorpe, at Theatrelab NYC with the company she helped found, Ground Up Productions. The play tells the story of the writer's real-life encounter with the diplomats and activists of (ICAN) the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and their journey to change the world. Last summer, she performed and collaborated on 'RELEASE,' also with 2nd Street to advocate for and tell the stories of formerly incarcerated Berkshire area women. In Oklahoma, where she's from, she directed and adapted Oklahoma Shakespeare's first ever Zoom performance of Anton Chekhov’s 'Three Sisters,' where she also played Masha and designed sound.

She is a proud member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Michael Chekhov Association, the Association of Theatre Movement Educators, and serves on the Fornés Institute Committee. She continues to be inspired by this work in meaningful ways and is constantly looking for new forms of making theatre.