Laurie Steven is an award-winning director, writer, and founding artistic director of Odyssey Theatre. Her work addresses contemporary issues through a theatrical language that weaves together myth, mask, Commedia dell’Arte, music and dance-theatre. She delights in creating imaginative performances that bring a fresh perspective to the human experience.  [read more button]

Laurie has directed a range of plays by Molière, a physical comedy by Goldoni, a comedy of verbal wit by Marivaux, a romance by Benavente, fantasies by Gozzi, social satires by French neoclassical playwrights and the tragicomedies of Giraudoux and García Lorca.

In 1995, she began collaborating with Asian dance-drama choreographers on original work inspired by myth and folktales. Collaborations in Peking Opera, Indian Kathakali and Indonesian Wayang Wong led to groundbreaking productions, including The Wedding, for which Laurie won the Capital Critics’ Circle Best Director award.

Laurie has written scenarios and collaboratively developed plays exploring themes of class conflict, empowerment and social justice, including the madcap comedy Moonlight Mischief, the comic fantasy The Czar’s Daughter-in-Law Was a Frog, the adventure Kamalay and the comic drama Turandot. A Guy Named Joe, her first solo-authored play, is a contemporary social satire about homelessness. Laurie has also co-translated and adapted seven Spanish and French theatre classics.

In 2017, Laurie was awarded an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Arts Fellowship, leading her to create and direct The Other Path, a podcast series featuring five original fantasy audio dramas set in the contemporary world. 

Laurie has given training in masked performance; Commedia dell’Arte; writing, directing and dramaturgy for physical theatre forms; and artistic directing for independent theatres. She has provided dramaturgy for and directed workshops of more than 30 new plays and original translations and taken 29 to full production.

Her current projects include writing The Girl With No Hands; collaborating with members of the Sri Lankan State Dance ensemble on a co-production of The Blue Demon; and launching Odyssey’s digital mask museum.