Lauren Rayner is a director, producer, actor, and playwright. She is in process of earning a BA in Theatre and Applied Education in Theatre Arts from the University of Southern California. Thus far in her undergraduate education she has re-established the Women's Theatre Organization and currently serves as President. The WTO is a producing company dedicated to giving theatrical opportunities to women interested in pursuing the art of theatre. Lauren is interested in new play development and has cultivated and directed two of her own pieces in Los Angeles and nurtured the development of six new works by fellow female artists since 2006. Her latest play Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously was workshopped at a roundtable reading at the Lark Play Development Center in New York.

In addition, Lauren also has a solid foundation in classical texts. In 2004, she was selected for the Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship. She produced and directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2004) and Macbeth (2005) and took both productions to the Mary Folger Shakespeare Festival in Washington, D.C. receiving the Brian Cabe Award for Directing Excellence for two consecutive years. In December 2007, Lauren directed, produced, and designed an all female production of King Lear. Most recently, Lauren studied abroad in London, England at the British American Drama Academy.

Lauren spent her last two summers in New York City working for various off-Broadway theatre companies. She has interned at the Cherry Lane Theatre, The Play Company, the Women’s Expressive Theatre, the Lark Play Development Center, and the Ontological-Hysterical Theater. In Los Angeles, Lauren interned at the Center Theatre Group in the Executive Offices under Artistic Director, Michael Ritchie. In June 2008, Lauren had her New York offoff-Broadway producing and lighting design debut with Beauty4Ashes Theatre Company on the New York premier of The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker.

Currently, Lauren is living in Los Angeles and working on a one-woman show to be performed in Spring 2009. She performs with MRS Degree Improv, USC’s only all female improv troupe. Lauren is proud to be fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas.