Erin Murray
Jeff Henkel Photography
Erin Murray (she/her) is passionate about multi-generational stories with a delicious femme center. Based in Seattle and Chicago, her work has been seen across the Northern Hemisphere.
Recent credits includes the world premiere of an immersive theatre event Last Days of the Tsars produced by Witness at Stimson-Green Mansion, the Seattle premiere of Annie Baker's John (ArtsWest), Jaclyn Backhaus’ You On the Moors Now (Seattle University), and reviving her 2018 professional premiere of Scott Kaiser's Shakespeare’s Other Women (Island Shakespeare Festival). Favorite productions include Anne Washburn's The Internationalist (Steppenwolf Garage), the Irish premiere of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Pride Festival, Dublin Fringe, Project Arts Centre; Winner of Best Production at the Spiegeltent), the world premiere of Ariel Zetina's Pink Milk: a magical tragedy loosely based on the life of Alan Turing (Executive Producer; NYFringe and Chicago Fringe Festival; named Top 5 New Chicago Plays 2012 by New City Stages), and the Chicago premiere of Suzanne Heathcote's I Saw My Neighbor on the Train and I Didn’t Even Smile (Redtwist Theatre, Jeff Nomination for Best Supporting Actress).
Adaptation credits include creating bilingual Shakespeare productions of The Taming of the Shrew/ La Fierecilla Domada (2017) and Twelfth Night/ Duodécima Noche (2018) with Seattle Latinx Artivist Ana Maria Campoy for Seattle Shakespeare Company's statewide tour. The productions featured racially diverse casts possessing various levels of Spanish language proficiency and together the productions were seen by over 16,000 people. In 2018, Erin adapted Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts through the lens of race and class while focusing specifically on the white feminism embodied by the character Helen Alving. In 2021, Erin will adapt Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac for Island Shakespeare Festival with a non-binary actor in the titular role to explore the themes of otherness and activism.
In 2018, Erin started the Workshop program at Youth Theatre Northwest, which provides nationally recognized playwrights with a workshop production of their TYA scripts while emerging actors learn essential script development skills on stories for their specific age group. Past projects include Danielle Mohlman’s Dust, a fifteen person play with choreography that places the Peter Pan myth inside of a school shooting to explore the sexual violence and misogyny at the heart of all school shootings; Diana Grisanti’s The Starkweather South High School First Annual Physic’s Club End-of-Year Lock-In or ghost party, an ensemble play with music about friendship, grief, and resilience; and workshop readings of Kristin Idaszak’s Wildfire and the Bird Scouts, an endearing comedy about climate change and social anxiety, and Grace McLeod's Scare Me, a 90 minute dark dramady set in our contemporary gig economy examining adulthood fears like intimacy, failure, and loneliness.
In addition to being passionate practitioner of Theatre, Erin also believes in strengthening community comprehension of Theatre as art form. Erin started "Kilroys and Coffee" a text analysis class aimed at reading emerging female, trans, and non-binary playwrights from The Kilroy's List alongside established texts. Students practice cold reading skills, discover new audition material, meet other actors in a non-competitive environment, and deepen their critical awareness of contemporary American Theatre - while drinking free coffee. She also produced a podcast, That's WOW: that's womxn of Washington, which focused on major performance projects helmed by womxn in the Seattle/Tacoma area in order to raise awareness and deepen the context of each project. Guests included Regional Theatre Director, Desdemona Chiang; Sara Porkalob, creator of The Dragon Trilogy, Clare Robertson, producer for Belarus Free Theatre, and Laura T. Fisher, co-founder of Not In Our House.
From 2005 - 2008, Erin was the Staff Director for Opera Theatre Company based in Dublin, Ireland. Erin assisted on and toured six fully staged operas across Western Europe including a site responsive production of Beethoven's Fidelio at the historic Kilmainham Gaol. Associate Director credits include the Irish National tour of Mozart's Bastien and Bastienne, and the Les Azuriales Opera Festival production of Mozart's Apollo and Hyacinthus.
Education: MFA, Northwestern University; BA, Trinity College Dublin. Professional affiliations: Intiman Emerging Artist Pilot Program, Director’s Lab West, SDC Observership Class of 2019/2020/2021, and P3/Pacific Performance Project. Grants: Greater Tacoma Community Foundation Spark Grant, Tacoma city tour of Tanya Saracho's Fade semi-staged reading. Erin is an ensemble member of Redtwist Theatre, Chicago.