Erica Lauren McLaughlin is an actress and playwright with a passion for youth activism. As an actress, she has performed on stage at the Kennedy Center, the New York Fringe Festival, Atlas Performing Arts Center (DC), Theatre Project (Baltimore), PS 122 (NY), Liberty Showcase Theatre (Baltimore), UMBC, and in commercial and film. Erica currently serves as Managing Director of the Unmentionable Theatre Company of Baltimore, MD, a socially conscious theatre troupe which is comprised of members all under the age of 30. As a playwright, she received the 2001 National ACT-SO gold medal for playwriting, and her plays have been produced at the Mobtown Theatre in Baltimore, in Washington DC’s Inaugural Capital Fringe Festival, and at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY. A well-rounded theatre artist, Erica is also trained as a puppeteer, dancer, and improviser.  Erica remains a continuing student, and studies acting at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington. Next year, Erica hopes to begin study in a Master of Fine Arts in Acting program and begin to further synthesize her passion of activism and theatre.

An experienced educator herself, Erica has taught in multiple disciplines, instructing classes in acting, tap, ballet, musical theatre, coaching dance teams, creative storytelling/writing, and most recently, puppetry. She has also taught for multiple years training classes on giving excellent service in the restaurant industry.

Erica graduated cum laude from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting. At UMBC, she founded the 24 Hour play festival as well as the Wednesday Reading Series for new plays. She also attended Howard Community College, and in that short year, she served as Vice President of the Student Government Association, helped to organize an NAACP chapter there, and was the sole student member of the College Council.

Erica McLaughlin is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) National Board of Directors, the world’s largest and oldest civil rights organization, where she represents youth advocates from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.  At 23, Erica is the youngest member of the NAACP Executive Committee. She has served at all levels in the association, beginning as a member of a local unit, to her present national capacity. Erica doesn’t see her activism and community service as separate from her career as an artist. In fact, playwright William Inge summed up Erica McLaughlin’s diverse passions best, saying, “Theatre is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theatre.”

2005, Much Ado About Nothing @ UMBC

Baltimore Sun Review

"Among the big supporting cast, a standout is Erica McLaughlin as Hero's father, Leonato. The cross-gender casting might distract some theatergoers at first, but this actor captures the essential quality of Leonato as a parent whose firm authority seems increasingly shaky as the domestic world is turned upside down by all the crazy developments."

 

2005, Basura! New York Fringe Festival

Village Voice

"The puppeteers give their refuse a broad range of emotions with the tiniest flick of a wrist. And by engaging the lyrical beauty in common garbage, they remind us that wonder is not the exclusive purview of children."

 

NY Theatre.Com

"Director Colette Searls and her skillful puppeteers Erica Lauren McLaughlin, Katie Sasso, and Jessie Touart invest their creations with playfulness and inner desires, and immediately I felt a remarkable bond with ordinarily revolting matter..."

 

Love and Wood was a January 2006 City Paper Critic's Pick!

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