Spotlight On...Lauren Keating

Name: Lauren Keating

Hometown: Sergeantsville, NJ

Education: NYU

Favorite Credits: Off-Bway: Al's Business Cards. NYC: Comedie of Errors, Measure for Measure, Harmonious Pimps of Harmony

Why theater?: It demands presence. 

Tell us about The Architecture of Becoming: Visceral, Big, Imaginative.

What inspired you to direct The Architecture of Becoming?: A desire to cast myself/ourselves as the hero. 

What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: Theater that needs to be live, that absolutely cannot be achieved in 2-D.  I'm inspired by playwright Dipika Guha, with whom I’m working on The Architecture of Becoming.  By the incredible actors on AoB, who are taking huge leaps and risks in this production and are the living definition of vulnerability and bravery. In the larger world, Julie Taymor and Emma Rice have been big influences on me, as well as Dan Sullivan, Joe Haj and Bill Rauch.

If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: The list is impossibly long!  How about convincing Sarah Waters to write a play for me to direct?

What show have you recommended to your friends?: 17 Orchard Point by Stephanie DiMaggio and Anton Dudley. With Michele Pawk. Coming to Theater Row (The Beckett) in May!

Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: For Dipika, Emily Watson in "The Magical and Mystical Life of Dipika Guha"

What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: I don't tend to feel guilty about them...Watching ABC Family, maybe?

What’s the most played song on your iTunes?: “There & Back Again”, Toshi Reagon

If you weren’t working in theater, you would be_______:  I've never had any other vision for my life.... President?

What’s up next?: Tracks at Dixon Place