Erin E. Riley
playwright - director - actor
Erin Riley is a classically trained director, actor, and playwright living and working in the Baltimore-Washington DC region. She holds her degree in Classical Performance and Theatre Studies from Notre Dame of Maryland University and received her training in the conservatory program at the Nuffield Studio at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. Erin specializes in adapting classical stories for modern audiences and her update of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women has been produced eight times since its debut in 2019. She is a Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant recipient for her forthcoming dream play The MIdnight Crow and Other Birds about Elizabeth I, Mary Stuart and Anne Boleyn. She is also currently in the process of adapting Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables.
Erin has directed critically acclaimed pieces including her own adaptation of Blood Countess, Detroit '67, and Origin of the Species at Strand Theater Company, Richard III and Julius Caesar with The Company of Women, Vinegar Tom at Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theater, and the American Premiere of Six Dead Queens...and an Inflatable Henry with the Mobtown Players. She is the recipient of the 2021 BroadwayWorld Baltimore Award for Best Direction of a Streaming Play and the 2019 BroadwayWorld Baltimore award for Best Direction of a Play or Musical for Julius Caesar. Additionally, she is the 2016 Baltimore United Local Small and Hidden Independent Theater award-winner for Outstanding Direction of a Play for Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
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Erin has also performed in dozens of plays and musicals since the tender age of twelve. Favorite roles include Helen in Neil LaBute's Fat Pig, The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Mistress Overdone in Measure for Measure, Lady Macduff in Macbeth, and Mrs. Peachum in Threepenny Opera.
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Erin is genuinely interested in projects that feature strong woman-identifying points of view, promote inclusivity and celebrate diversity, and representation of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ artists. She is an advocate for fat positivity and body neutrality and believes all humans are perfectly made as they are. Follow Erin on Instagram and TikTok @erinlovesplays