LAURA KUTKAITĖ is a Lithuanian theatre director.

Winner of FAST FORWARD 2022 – European Festival for Young Stage Directors in Dresden, participant of THEATERTREFFEN INTERNATIONAL FORUM 2023 (Berliner Festspiele) in Berlin. Currently conducting a workshop on female pleasure in Kathmandu, Nepal and preparing for her next premiere “tremolo” on this same topic together with MMLAB – Arts and Science Lab Theatre.

Laura Kutkaitė, *1993, studied and graduated in choreography and philosophy before starting to study directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where she graduated in 2021 with a production of Sarah Kane’s PHAEDRA’S LOVE. The production was instantly taken into the repertoire of OKT/Vilnius City Theatre. THE SILENCE OF THE SIRENS is her first work at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in Vilnius, it opened the new studio stage there in June 2022 and won an international award and recognition in Germany. Her work THE BREAST OF TIRESIAS has premiered at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in November 2023. Her most recent premiere “JUDITH SHAKESPEARE – RAPE AND REVENGE” has premiered at Staatsschauspiel Dresden on May 2nd, 2024.

Kutkaitė is mainly interested in the topic of the Body, in the fatality of physicality, in bodily interactions on stage. Usually the choreography of her performances is purposefully repetitive as in a ritual. Among her other interests are therefore mythology, gender issues, social exclusion and identity control. Every attempt to create becomes an attempt to understand the screws of patriarchal society and to loosen those screws. Director focuses on creative process: the internal processes of the artistic team are often transferred to the stage making the line between fiction and documentary intentionally blurry. The physical proximity of the actor and the audience is one of the distinguishing marks of the rising artist.