Biography
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 Tear a Root from the Earth, a new musical that examines the legacy of American intervention in Afghanistan, with Qais Essar and Gramophonic (Creative Capital: “On Our Radar”, The Kennedy Center, BRIC, New Ohio Ice Factory,); 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 (Independent Shakespeare, UCSD, Willamette, LA Mission); Everybody Is Gone, a work of immersive journalism responding to ongoing human rights atrocities (Asman Collective, Bard College, Theatre Row). She recently directed the world premiere of Steph del Rosso’s Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill at the Flea; Wing It!, a large-scale community performance for Handspring Puppet Company in celebration of South Africa’s National Day of Reconciliation; and The Unbelievers, a collaboration between playwright Hannah Rittner and Yazidi Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad (Theatre Centre, Canada); and collaborated on Casablancabox (2017 Drama Desk Nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience).
Her direction of Gao Xingjian’s Nocturnal Wanderer was awarded Dartmouth's Gurdin Prize. She was a finalist for the 2018 Creative Capital Award, and is a recipient of a 2019 grant from the National Endowment for Democracy. Marina is a resident director at The Flea, Lincoln Center Directors Lab alum, and nominator for the Drama League Awards. She has developed new plays and musicals with The Playwright’s Realm, The Flea, Northern Stage, Vox Theater, Independent Shakespeare, Boston Court, REDCAT, Peterborough Players, Toronto’s Theatre Centre, NYU-Tisch, Dartmouth College, Brown University. She teaches directing at The National Theater Institute, and is currently teaching Media & Live Performance at Willamette University. Upcoming: an episodic adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics (The Flea). MFA: CalArts. BA: Dartmouth College. www.marinamcclure.com