Eddie DeHais

Eddie DeHais (they/them) is a transgender director, choreographer, writer, and visual artist. They create spaces of rigorous collaboration and radical joy to investigate the extreme, unspoken, and untranslatable experiences of humanity in both new and classic texts.  They create epic, transformational, sensorial experiences that empower artists and audiences to engage with difficult and conflicting truths in shared community. Eddie’s conviction is that compassionate and curious storytelling can crack our hearts open, radicalize our imaginations, and change the damn world.

Raised bi-culturally between New York and France, Eddie is a world traveler, and has lived and worked in cities all over the United States and world. Eddie will receive their MFA Directing from Brown University class of 2021.

Seattle (2013-2018) credits include: Director of New Works for Café Nordo (where Eddie launched Nordo’s New Works Program in 2016), Founding Artistic Director of DangerSwitch! (a collaborative physical theatre ensemble that produced original action-based theatre from 2015-2018), The Intiman, Book-it Repertory, the 14/48 Projects, Annex Theatre, Café Nordo, Ghost Light Theatricals, and Theater Off Jackson. Chicago (2009-2011) credits include assistant directing May Adrales at the Goodman, JoAnne Akalaitis at Court Theatre, and Leslie Danzig at Redmoon. 

Upcoming productions in 2021/2022 include BREADCRUMBS at Ars Nova’s 2021 Virtual Antfest, AGE OF BEES at Theater at Monmouth, and AS YOU LIKE IT at Emerson Stage; Eddie will also be assisting Daniel Kramer on WAR REQUIEM at the Gran Teatre del Licieu  in Barcelona and TURANDOT at the Grand Théâtre du Genève in Switzerland. Eddie is a 2021 Brown-Trinity Rep MFA Directing Candidate. With The Eddie DeHais Company, Eddie develops plays, dance, and installations that center queer, POC, disabled, and neurodivergent artists. They have worked/studied with artists such as Anne Bogart, Daniel Kramer, Morgan Jenness, Annie- Parson, Whitney White, Will Davis, Taibi Magar, Julian Boal, Claire Warden, and were an Assistant Director/SDCF Observer for Robert O’Hara’s Macbeth at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Eddie received their degree in Theater & Performance Studies from the University of Chicago and studied clown and physical theater at L’École Clown et Comédie Francine Côté in Montreal.  eddiedehais.com