Leora Morris BSc (McGill), Diploma in Acting (George Brown Theatre School), MFA (Yale School of Drama) specializes in directing, acting, and new play development. Most recent directing projects include The Sound Inside (Coal Mine Theatre, Toronto), A Christmas Carol (Alliance Theatre, Atlanta), and the development of a new performance work for babies 0-1 called Baby Sound Garden. In October 2023, Leora will direct a workshop of the new musical Fountain and in February 2024, she will direct the premiere of a new adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities in Atlanta, by Brendan Pelsue. 

As Yale Directing Fellow and then resident Artist in Education at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, she directed Ride the Cyclone (Suzi Award Best Direction, Best Production of a Musical), Hey Willy See the Pyramids, Winnie-the-Pooh, Crossing Delancey, The Dancing Granny, and Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience, as well as helped facilitate the development and producing of new works for young audiences.

Other directing projects have included: Knives in Hens, Orphans (Coal Mine Theatre), The Philosopher’s Wife (Paradigm Productions), Labour of Love (US premiere, Olney Theatre of Center), Spring Awakening (Connecticut College), He Left Quietly (2014 SummerWorks Best Production Award, Toronto), Amy and the Orphans, Women Beware Women, King John, Riverbank: A Noh Play for Northerly Americans (Yale School of Drama), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, love holds a lamp in this little room (Yale Cabaret), Horse (Toronto Fringe), as well as workshops and readings at Public Theater, Florida Studio Theatre, NYU Tisch, O’Neill Theatre Center, Theatre Emory, Theatrical Outfit and others.

Before moving to the USA, Leora served as Associate Dramaturg for the 2013 Banff Playwrights’ Colony; and Apprentice in New Play Development at Tarragon Theatre. Leora was part of a group of artists that worked with Susanna Fournier on her trilogy The Empire, which was produced in its entirety in the 2018-2019 season. As an Associate Artist with Small Wooden Shoe, Leora co-curated and directed the Reading Difficult Plays and Singing Simple Songs series, and collaborated on productions of Brecht’s Galileo and Evan Webber’s Antigone Dead People. She has also collaborated in various capacities on projects with Dancemakers, Great Canadian Theatre Company, Volcano Theatre, Theatre Aquarius, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Canadian Stage, Nightswimming, Praxis Theatre, fu-Gen Theatre, 4th Line Theatre, Theaturtle, Theatre Kairos, and Birdtown and Swanville.

Leora is a recipient of the 2012 Ken MacDougall Award for Directing in Toronto and Yale’s Julian Milton Kaufman Prize in Directing. Leora served as co-artistic director of Yale Cabaret in its 48th season and co-founded the now-annual Satellite Festival. Leora participated in the O’Neill/National New Play Network Directing Fellowship in 2017-2019, and the Manhattan Theatre Club Fellowship in NYC 2017-2018. Leora was recently shortlisted for the international 2020-2022 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Prize in the Theatre category.