Photo of Laura in front of a white wall, smiling, wearing a black long sleeve shirt. Photo credit, Dana Patrick.
Laura rikard (SHE/HER)
Specialties: Teaching, Directing, Acting, Intimacy Choreography, Intimacy Coordination
Research: Consent in the Acting Classroom, Instilling Self-Care in Actor Training
Asheville, NC
Laura Rikard (SAG-AFTRA/AEA) She is a director, actor, teacher, intimacy choreographer, intimacy coordinator, and a founding member and head faculty of Theatre Intimacy Education. She is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of South Carolina Upstate. Laura has worked in film and television in NYC, regionally, on national tours, internationally and devised solo performance productions.
Directing credits include: Anon(ymous), The Seagull, Dead Man’s Cellphone, Spring Awakening, 13 - the Musical, Romeo and Juliet, and others. Acting Credits include: A Streetcar Named Desire, By the Bog of Cats, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Macbeth, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Rhinoceros, and others.
Stage Intimacy Choreography includes: Scenes from an Execution, Three Guys and Brenda, Tally’s Folly, Omnium Gatherum, Stick Fly, Spring Awakening, The Meisner, among others. She has worked as an Intimacy Coordinator for NBC Universal/Amazon. She contributed to the only book on Theatre Intimacy, Staging Sex; Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Theatrical Intimacy by Chelsea Pace.
She has been coaching and teaching for 20 years. Former students have won the National Shakespeare Competition at the Lincoln Center, been accepted to top training programs and are currently working on and off Broadway, in professional theatres in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, at top regional theatres and her students can also been seen in numerous films and television series. Laura is a recipient of the best acting award at the Virginia Film Festival and has been named by Academic Keys as a "Who's Who in Fine Arts Education" Festival. She has received the Kennedy Center Medallion for her contributions to Intimacy Direction/Choreography. She has been awarded the Excellence in Teaching and Advising Award at USC Upstate and the USC Upstate Glasswing Butterfly Award for developing the TIE EAP training. She has taught theatre at the University of Virginia, Stephen F. Austin State University, Brown University, and the University of Miami. She is a member of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers, the SAFD, ATME, ATHE, and VASTA.