ABOUT LAURA
A proudly half-Spanish actor, director, theatre writer, scholar, and teacher, Laura Lodewyck earned a Communications & Theatre and Psychology BA from Notre Dame, an Acting MFA from Roosevelt University, an Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre & Drama from Northwestern University, studied at London's Globe Theatre under Education Director and Founder Patrick Spottiswoode, and is currently head of the Theatre Department at Naperville's North Central College, where she has been on staff since 2015.
She holds a Midwest Chapter Emmy for her on-air work with the NBC 5 Street Team, and has produced and voiced traffic and news for multiple stations including WLIT-FM, KISS-FM, and WLS-FM. Other on-camera work includes a wide range of voice-overs, commercials, and industrials, as well as the WB’s The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, the indie film Voices From the Graves and NBC’s Chicago Med.
A founding ensemble member of Chicago Fusion Theatre/Wayward Productions, Laura has appeared on top area stages including Chicago Shakespeare, Victory Gardens, Court Theatre, Illinois Theatre Center, Remy Bumppo, and Teatro Vista, with regional work at St. Louis’ Hothouse Theatre, and New Jersey Shakespeare.
Deeply committed to leveraging the power of the arts to effect positive change, she has worked with initiatives including Latinx Theatre Commons’ ‘El Fuego’ project, the veteran-based verbatim theater “Telling Project," the University of Pennsylvania’s Humanities and Human Flourishing Project, and acted as Program Assistant for Agnes Wilcox’s prison performing arts outreach ‘The Hamlet Project’ at the maximum-security Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. Laura’s research on the transformative power of theatre during times of war was awarded with an American Association of University Women (AAUW) fellowship,
Her writing on the arts has been featured in the Theatre Journal, the Shakespeare Bulletin, HowlRound, and Latinx Shakespeares, as well as the anthologies The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas, and Makeshift Chicago Stages; winner of the American Society for Theatre Research’s 2020 Collaborative Research Award.
Like hundreds of little girls across America, I began my stage career as The Most Adorable Orphan (according to my mother) in ANNIE, but no one could have predicted that would lead to working across radio, television, theatre, and educational theatre, and even winning an Emmy for my on-camera work with NBC5.
Other unexpected pursuits included competitive cheerleading, and making my day-job debut as a research assistant running fMRI experiments at a cognitive psychology lab.
But work in - and in support of - theatre
has always been my focus.
I am currently Associate Professor of Theatre; the Chairperson for the Department of Theatre; and Coordinator of Acting at North Central College, where it is my pride and privilege to help shape future generations of theatre artists, and to pass on my deep love of the art form, and my belief in its power to make positive change in the world.
As the parent of a Type 1 diabetic, I am deeply involved in T1 advocacy (and disability and access for theatre in general). I'm also a fan of sci fi and the classic X-files, and will follow ANYTHING Gillian Anderson does.
I am a proud Equity Membership Candidate (EMC), and represented by Lori Lins Ltd.