The Ugly Shakespeare company

Lara Macgregor, Executive Director

Lara works as an actor, director, and performance coach in theatre and film in New Zealand. She studied acting in New York City with Uta Hagen, Anthony Abeson and Tony Greco and subsequently worked for ten years as an actor in the U.S.

She holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Directing from The National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney and has directed over 40 productions in the last decade.

In 2009, Lara was appointed Associate Artistic Director at The Court Theatre in Christchurch, and in 2010 became Artistic Director at Fortune Theatre in Dunedin. Her directing highlights include Red, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Play, Tribes, Souvenir, The Caretaker, Punk Rock, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and RENT The Musical.

Since 2015 she has been freelancing across all disciplines with multiple companies including, South Pacific Pictures, Auckland Theatre Company, The Court Theatre, Circa Theatre, Centrepoint Theatre, The Actors’ Program, the Pan Asian Theatre Collective, and the University of Otago Theatre Studies.

Recent acting credits include; Fran in Things I Know to Be True (The Court Theatre/Circa Theatre), Annie Wilkes in Misery (The Court Theatre), Deborah in the feature film Bad Behaviour, Dir: Alice Englert, Mrs Roidern in One of Us is Lying (Netflix), Sgt Gillian Carmichael in Clickbait (Netflix), Dir: Emma Freeman, and Moira Pierce on Shortland Street. 

She most recently directed the first show in the new Court Theatre – End of the Golden Weather starring Sir Ian Mune, and founded her own theatre company Birds of a Feather where she produced and directed Suzie Miller’s global sensation Prima Facie.