American by birth, Marina McClure spent her youth wandering nomadically throughout Europe with her family. While living in London in the early 1990s, her parents, thinking an experience as a young patron of the arts would enhance any future Bachelor of Arts, spent her college savings on theater tickets for her. Inspired by these performances, McClure pursued a degree in theater at Dartmouth College and focused her work on investigating the relationships between nationality, cultural identity and performance. As an exchange student at the National Theatre Institute in 2002, her directing mentor, Donny Levit, introduced her to the work of Chinese Nobel Laureate, Gao Xingjian. Her 2004 thesis production of Gao’s Nocturnal Wanderer was awarded Dartmouth's Gurdin Directing Award.
As she navigated the New York arts scene after graduation, McClure noticed a dearth of hands-on professional theater opportunities for emerging artists, and in response, founded Odyssey Productions: a collective of theater-makers with a passion for experimentation and bold creation. As Odyssey's Artistic Director, McClure refined a rehearsal process that she continues to employ that encourages creativity through collaborative, physical exploration of scripts. Between 2005-2010, Odyssey produced over twenty-five productions in found spaces and theaters throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
In 2007, McClure was awarded a General-Campbell Fellowship to research identity in South African performance. With Thom Pasculli, she co-founded The Savannah Theatre Project (TSTP), and produced a four-month program of artistic exchange between American and South African artists and communities, a three-day international symposium, and the development and tour of four new works in the US and South Africa. In South Africa, she taught daily yoga classes, and with TSTP members, led movement and storytelling workshops at the Hilton Arts Festival. Upon her return to the US, McClure completed a 200-hour Yoga Alliance teacher training and began teaching yoga, movement and dance extensively in Washington, DC. This training and the experiences in South Africa were seminal in honing her artistic process: she now creates experimental live performances through an integrated practice of consciousness and intercultural awareness. Her work has been showcased at the New York & Capital Fringe Festivals, REDCAT, The Kennedy Center, Manhattan Theater Source, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Dartmouth College’s Frost Playwriting Festival, and in found spaces and theaters throughout Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York, New Hampshire, and South Africa.
Seeking to incorporate more sophisticated experimental design into her work and greater opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations, McClure began an MFA in Directing at the California Institute of the Arts in 2009. Under the mentorship of Travis Preston, she has solidified her passion for crafting immersive theatrical events and continued to explore new performance modes in her work. With her recent production of Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love, McClure led a fluid process that pushed the boundaries of how collaborative work can function within an institutional framework. In addition to furthering her skills in directing theater and site specific works, at CalArts she has expanded her practice to include directing opera and performance installations, and choreography. Her recent work at CalArts includes directing Iannis Xenakis’s opera Oresteia (a co-production with MOCA), a light-driven exploration of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, an interactive outdoor performance based on Charles Mee's text True Love, and assisting director Maria Morett with her adaptation of Octavio Paz's poem Piedra del Sol at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles.
Current projects include directing Marieluise Fleisser's Purgatory in Ingolstadt, collaborating with a lighting designer on a performance installation exploring barriers and borders, and directing a site specific production of Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story with original music. While in graduate school, McClure continues to produce Superhero Clubhouse's Planet Plays series in New York and is a script reader for the Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group. McClure also continues to teach yoga and movement classes at CalArts and in Washington, DC, and train with Shiva Rea in prana vinyasa flow; pursuits which are integral to her aesthetic vision.
