Lauren Kiele DeLeon is an Uruguayan-American director, intimacy director, and theorist. She has worked on and Off-Broadway in production and administration at theatres including The Lark, Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Flea, and Keen Company. Lauren came to intimacy direction after multiple years in the theatre alongside working in bystander intervention and trauma and is in training with TIE and IDC (where she is completing her certification). Her theory focuses on decolonizing practices within theatre practice and administration and how intimacy work ties into it. Aside from theatre, she is interested in decolonization of land and native people within the current colonial system and how to give right to and protect land.

Areas of concentration/study:

Intimacy Direction; Decolonization; Trauma Studies; Native/Land Studies

Internship Site(s):

City Theatre Miami, The Lark Playwriting Center

Study Abroad Site(s):

DAMU - Prague, Czech Republic

Capstone/Thesis/Dissertation Title:

Austentation: The Female Presenting Body as Object and Subject on Stage

Why PS @ NYU?

I chose to study in this program because of my undergraduate mentor, Bess Rowen, and theorist Diana Taylor. The work that both of these professors has exposed me to led me to NYU to pursue my own studies. NYU also is the first school to offer a course in Intimacy Direction training and I think that's one of the most vital ways to expose young new theatre artists to safe practices and influence the future of the industry.