Purgatory in Ingolstadt by Marieluise Fleisser, directed by Marina McClure, 2012
MARINA McCLURE creates emotionally-charged theater, opera, and spectacles that create space for exchange between artist and audience. Her work is known for striking visual design and physical performance. Through her multidisciplinary art lab, The New Wild, she collaborates with performers, designers and technologists to bring diverse stories with multicultural perspectives to American and international audiences.
Projects in development include Letters from Home, a multimedia performance in collaboration with a Cambodian-American father and daughter team that explores the impact of the Khmer Rouge genocide on both of their artistic practices (Merrimack Repertory Theater, UC Irvine Illuminations, UCSD, Willamette, LA Mission, Independent Shakespeare); Everybody Is Gone, a work of immersive journalism responding to ongoing human rights atrocities against the Uyghur people in Western China (Alte Münze - Berlin, Bard College, The National Endowment for Democracy); Tear a Root from the Earth, a new musical that examines the legacy of American intervention in Afghanistan, with Qais Essar and Gramophonic (MAP Fund, Creative Capital “On Our Radar”, Kennedy Center, New Ohio Ice Factory, BRICLab).
Marina recently directed Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (Willamette University); the world premiere of Steph del Rosso’s Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill (The Flea); the site-specific premiere of Leisure, Labor, Lust (The Mount); and The Unbelievers, a collaboration between playwright Hannah Rittner and Yazidi Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad (Theatre Centre, Canada). Other recent projects include: CasablancaBox (2017 Drama Desk Nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience, HERE); Wing It!, a giant puppet parade and large-scale community performance for the Tony-winning Handspring Puppet Company in celebration of South Africa's National Day of Reconciliation.
She has developed new plays and musicals with The Playwright’s Realm, The Flea, Boston Court Pasadena, REDCAT, Northern Stage, Vox Theater, Peterborough Players, United Solo, Toronto’s Theatre Centre. She was a resident director at The Flea, member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, nominator for the Drama League Awards. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for Democracy, US State Department, Brooklyn Arts Council, LA Department of Culture, Network of Ensemble Theaters, and MAP Fund. Her direction of Gao Xingjian’s Nocturnal Wanderer was awarded Dartmouth's Gurdin Prize.
Marina teaches directing at NYU-Tisch, recently taught “Integrating Media & Live Performance” at Willamette University, and frequently teaches directing at The National Theater Institute at the O’Neill and directs student work at Dartmouth College.
Marina has assisted Lisa Kron & Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home - Sundance), Anne Bogart/SITI Company (Trojan Women - BAM Next Wave; Getty Villa), and Nataki Garrett (An Octoroon - Woolly Mammoth).
Current: Letters From Home at Merrimack Rep.
BA: Dartmouth College, MFA: CalArts.