Lana Richards is a director focused on new work development, site specific work, and adaptation, recently returned to her home state of California after several years in New York & New England. Highly collaborative, she likes big plays about small things (and vice versa), the tender awkwardness of growing up, and stories that connect people to place. She has been  an artist-in-residence at The Dragon's Egg, Access Theater, and The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and is a resident company member with PlayGround SF. She is an alumna of Connecticut College, summa cum laude, where she studied theater and environmental studies, and was an Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Research Fellow and a recipient of the Crabtree Award for leadership and excellence in theater making. She was the 2019 Directing Fellow at Parallel 45 Theater. Lana has worked with We Players, The Civilians, The Hearth, Ruthless Nightingale, Parallel 45, PlayGround SF, and Pacific Repertory Theater, and is a  founding member of  The Wickies. 

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Lana loves working with young people and hopes to deepen her skills as a teacher and director for children of all ages.

 

Recent credits: Tips for Nervous Fliers (solo performance) at PlayGround's Free Play Festival, Hair (asst. dir. to Kit McKay) and Little Bunny Foo Foo (assist. dir. to Katherine Carter) at Parallel 45, My Girl by Anna Nemetz and Allison Snyder (co-developer) at Dixon Place, Arabella by Jamie Semel at Planet Connections Theater Festivity, Ithaca: a solo performance by Paola Pilnik at Electric Lodge, In the Spotlight by Lindsey Ruzza at Connecticut College (post-grad hire), Their Blood is Strong: a site-integrative exploration of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,  and Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl at Connecticut College.

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Training: SITI Company, The Michael Chekhov Association, Bread and Puppet, Complicite, and the National Theater Institute for Advanced Directing.

 

Lana is a big fan of John Steinbeck, large scale land art, and really good pancakes.  ​

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