Currently in Production

Previous Productions:
Below is a list of a few of the productions I have been involved in over the last couple of years. For more information on previous productions and works in progress, view my acting resume or feel free to email me at me@ericamclaughlin.com, or call at (646) 240-1983

January2010- I am excited to return to puppetry in Michael Bodel's production of La Sonnambula. Bellini's pastoral opera, La Sonnambula is peeled back to reveal the experience of young Amina on the day before her wedding, surrounded by her village but lost in her own mind. A sleepwalker, Amina exists in the space between sleeping and wakimg, vibrant and lifeless. Visceral choreography of two dancers converges with puppetry on multiple scales. Amina's world decomposes. Soprano Mme. Giuditta Pasta, is brought to life, moments before she steps onto the stage of La Scala, 1831.

The production will be presented in 2010 for full production, and as part of Here Art Center's Culture Mart '10.
Culture Mart: January 11-31, 2010
Sonnambula: January 12th and 13th, 2010 BUY TICKETS

Join us this January for our parade of creative process — beautifully produced, yet still in development. This is otherwise known as CULTUREMART: HERE's annual festival where our resident artists blur the boundaries between dance, theatre, music, new media, puppetry and visual art, melding these forms to support their adventurous visions. This year's program features 12 workshop performances spanning pop-opera, butoh, multi-channel video, pure-movement and everything in-between.

CULTUREMART is a vital testing ground, an environment where you can sample live art in progress, provide feedback and play a crucial role in the development of new work. With a limited number of performances, festival tickets sell fast. Check out CULTUREMART and let our images fill your imagination.
More information is available at http://www.mbodel.net/ and http://www.here.org/ .
left: Michael Bodel's large puppet version of Amina for La Sonnambula.

September 2009- The 2009 Evening of One-Acts (EOA), produced by E-Star Talent in association with PaulsonWorks, LLC. EOA featured four controversial cutting-edge short plays chosen to broaden the spectrum of the African American experience on stage. From the 86 plays submitted, the four selected were Commencement by Edward Musto, Bar Belle by Janis Butler Holm, Bluff by Mike Folie, and The Spade's Ten by Sean Behrens. The plays ran three performances from September 17th to 19th at the The 28th Street Theatre (TADA! Theatre).

I played Bethie May Thane, a southern drawling, overbearing, gun toting Lady Macbeth in The Spade's Ten and Bree, and uptight, down-low lesbian in Bar Belle.

The Spades Ten
Inspired by Macbeth, the Spade's Ten is a powerful southern melodrama that shares the gripping adventure of a "go-lucky", energetic Macdonald Thane; his snobby, selfish, nagging wife Bethie May and his Voodoo Spiritual Advisor, Loula.
Bluff
In a family of three, how do you live your life when the mother is no longer there? Bluff paints a very vivid picture of the father-daughter relationship in a new family structure.
Bar Belle
Bar Belle is a quick, comical look at the outcome of "judging a book by it's cover". Things are not always what they seem in same-sex relationships.
Commencement
What happens when you graduate from college? Does your life end, or does it begin? Or both? Commencement has cute, avant-garde way of addressing these questions through the lives of two college buddies.

Starring: (from left to right)
Justin Alastair Jairam, Erica Lauren McLaughlin, Curtis D. McNeil Jr., Aris Mendoza, Ben Samuels, and Jennifer Banner Sobers

July 2009-Last year, I had the pleasure of participating in the Winter 2008 Strawberry One-Act Festival in a play called Cold April by John P. McEneny where I was nominated for Best Actress in a play for my performance as "Mosi". The script won the award for Best Play at the festival, and was later published in The Best Plays from the Strawberry One-Act Festival: Volume Five. The play also caught the eye of Mike Smith Rivera and Kelly Anne Burns, a husband and wife duo of two talented performers that make up the production team Burning Clown Productions, NYC. I've spent the last few months working with them, returning cast member Sean Leigh Phillips, (nominated for Best Actor in a Play for his performance) and a talented ensemble and crew on transitioning this meaningful play from stage to screen.

The film is set in 1994 during the Rwandan genocide. It was inspired by the true story of the girls of St. Maria Goretti School in Muramba, who when faced with death, had the courage to resist handing over their Tutsi classmates. The film features Nia-Ashanti Ashley, Alex Marshall Brown, Cherrye Davis, Erica Lauren McLaughlin, Sean Leigh Phillips, Be Rivers, Maduka Steady, Akilah Vasser, Melody Wallace, and Jalin Washington. Says Marie-Claudine Mukamabano, Rwandan genocide survivor, activist, and dialect/story consultant for the film, "If people in my country saw you doing this, they would never know that you weren't there."

PRODUCTION PHOTOS
View rehearsal photographs from the production of Cold April.

See the brilliant photos from the making of Cold April by the incredibly talented Ashleigh Ide.

right: Erica Lauren McLaughlin as "Mosi", and Sean Leigh Phillips as "Man" in Cold April. Photo by Ashleigh Ide.

July 2008- OM: Objects in Motion performed to rave reviews in this year's 2008 Capital Fireworks Puppet Fest! The festival was presented by the Puppeteers of America.

"OM" is a collaboration between puppet director Colette Searls and choreographer Doug Hamby: a funky variety show where characters spring from garbage bags, plastic wrap, and recycled paper to unleash their inner groove in vignettes of whimsy. In short episodes, OM transfigures the ordinary with a collage of music ranging from Mozart to Jazz to Hip Hop. Exploring the unexpected, lyrical and humorous, OM puts four puppeteers trained in modern dance behind and amoung the animated objects to explode physical boundaries. OM was originally developed and presented at UMBC in September 2005.

June 2008- Emerging Artist Theatre presents Laugh Out Loud! a collection of puppetry, clowning, and solo comedy acts at the Roy Arias Theatre Center, New York, NY. Erica presented an original puppetry piece called "Emergency Use Only".

Four droning strangers are stuck in a subway tunnel when inspiration strikes: they put their personal effects together an a puppet eager to dance merges to breathe life into an otherwise hapless situation. Featuring Krysta Gonzalez, Christopher Harris, Mandy Nicole Moore, and Erica McLaughlin.

February 2008- Cold April, by John P. McEneny, is named "Best Play" in the 2008 Winter Strawberry One-Act play festival! Twice a year, hundreds of plays from across the country are submitted for the competition, of which 40 are chosen to compete. Plays move from the 1st round to the semi-finals and then the finals. The playwright of the winning play receives a grant and the opportunity to have a full-length play developed by the Riant.

About the play
The play, Cold April, is set in 1994 Rwanda and was written and directed by John P. McEneny. It was inspired by the true story of the girls of St. Maria Goretti School in Muramba, who stood up to the Hutu militia and refused to hand over their Tutsi classmates. They were all slaughtered. I played Mosi, the lead character, a Hutu, who gives her own life to protest the killing of the girls at the school when it is attacked by a Hutu soldier.

I also had the honor of receiving a festival nomination for "Best Actress in a Play" for my performance of Mosi in Cold April. Other Nominations: Sean Phillips, "Best Actor in a Play" for the Man, John P. McEneny, "Best Director", Cold April.

May 2007-Erica performs as a puppeteer and one half of a gabby two-headed worm in the African folktale, The Oracle with the African Continuum Theatre Company at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, DC.

This world premiere by Ed Shockey was directed by Jennifer Nelson, and featured Erika Rose, Jewel Robinson, Erica McLaughlin and Alex Perez. The story was told by actors and beautifully designed puppets by Marie Schneggenberger.

About The Oracle:
Charlotte, a spirited young African princess sets out on a journey to discover the source of father's power. Along the way she is assisted by a series of magical characters. Her adventures take her over land and sea, through servitude and slavery before she returns to her ancestral home with new understanding of her place in the world.

March 2007- Erica joins the cast of a Midsummer Night's Dream at Liberty Showcase Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland as "Snug, a Joiner" one of the bard's famous rude mechanicals.

Midsummer is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays and is widely performed across the world. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and their interactions with the fairies who inhabit it and Duke of the Athenians. Comedy ensues!

Ask Samuel Pepys who saw it on Sept. 29, 1662, and thought it "The most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw...."

March 2007- The Unmentionable Theatre Company presents a staged reading of Body and Sold, a new documentary play by Deborah Lake Fortson, which is part of a coast-to-coast campaign to end the sex trafficking of American children and teens. It is a staged reading that will be held in cities all over the country throughout the month of March. 90% of proceeds from the readings go to charity and the remaining 10% goes back to Tempest Productions, the company that helped put the play on its feet. For more information about the play and the campaign, please visit the Tempest Productions website

Erica McLaughlin's play, Love and Wood played to full audiences at the Inagural Capital Fringe Festival, 2006.

Love and Wood takes its notes from a complicated jazz melody. The play’s unconventional form is just as unpredictable as the characters, and along with its overlapping dialogue and interwoven scenes, Love and Wood presents an exciting new twist to the girl meets boy scenario.

Decide for yourself which is better: Procreation or Conversation? Making friends or making babies? Everlasting love, or long lasting sex? Love and Wood leaves nothing off boundaries in this fresh, modern original work by Erica Lauren McLaughlin. The original prudction featured David "Spence" Baston, James Macon Grant, and Kelly Sinnott.

For more production info, or for info on Performance rights visit:www.ericamclaughlin.com/loveandwood
Production Photos, Script, Press Release or email me@ericamclaughlin.com.

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