Bio:

Lucy Murphy (she/her) is an emerging director of theatre and film, originally from Honolulu, Hawaii. Lucy first fell in love with directing and theatre-making while at Punahou School where she directed a production of Little Shop of Horrors as a Senior Independent Study. She then spent a gap year writing, producing, acting and directing a short play at ARTS at Marks Garage. While in college, Lucy has continued to be involved in Honolulu theatre, working with Diamond Head Theatre (DHT) to create a drive-in concert series during the theatre’s closure due to COVID, as well as working as the acting instructor for DHT’s 2020 Musical Theatre Experience Summer Program.

During her time at CMU, Lucy has been very involved with the School of Drama’s Playground Festival—an annual festival of independent student work— participating in the festival yearly as well as serving as the Festival Producer in her senior year. Lucy used Virtual Learning as an opportunity to explore her interest in film direction. While taking film analysis and production courses in CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lucy also completed an independent study in screenwriting and film direction to further her understanding of the medium.

Lucy spent the spring semester of her junior year living in New York City, immersing herself in the theatre industry through Syracuse Department of Drama’s Tepper Semester. While there, she worked as a marketing and directing intern for the York Theatre Company, splitting her time between archival research on the company’s production history and observing the rehearsal process of the new musical, Penelope, or How The Odyssey Was Really Written. In addition, Lucy worked as an intern for directors Gabriel Barre and Taibi Magar, observing and helping with research on their various theatrical projects.

Lucy is committed to creating work that shifts perspectives and draws attention to the systems of power that surround us with a focus on centering narratives of historically underrepresented groups. Lucy is particularly interested in creating theatrical and filmic works within the genre of Science Fiction. At CMU, Lucy has developed and explored this interest, directing and co-writing sci-fi plays exploring themes of systemic pressure, humanity’s relationship with technology and revolution. For her Senior Capstone, Lucy directed a production of Jacqueline Goldfinger’s BABEL. For this production, Lucy drew from personal experience as well as current events to craft a production that exemplifies her belief in sci-fi’s distinct ability to hold up a mirror to our world whilst engulfing the audience in a new one.