Lauren Gorelov, EdD
With nearly 20 years of experience in the arts, Dr. Lauren Gorelov is an artist-researcher specializing in verbatim performance and its intersections with identity, motherhood, and lived experience. As a passionate educator, Lauren serves as a student teaching supervisor and an adjunct professor at NYU, where she mentors emerging drama educators and leads workshops on culturally responsive approaches to drama in education. Through both artistic practice and pedagogy, Lauren is committed to fostering inclusive, reflective spaces for dialogue in the arts and education.
Professor. Artist. Researcher. Director.
Teaching & Research
Lauren currently teaches courses at NYU that sit at the intersection of pedagogy, performance, and embodied learning. In Introduction to Educational Theatre, students explore drama as a tool for inquiry, social imagination, and civic engagement, examining how theatrical practices function in classrooms, communities, and applied settings. Voice and Speech for the Actor centers the voice as both instrument and archive, integrating technique, text, and identity to support sustainable, expressive, and truthful performance. Across both courses, her teaching emphasizes process, critical reflection, and the belief that theatre trains us not only to perform, but to listen, respond, and lead.
Lauren is the founder of Culturally Responsive Drama, an organization committed to equity-centered theatre education. Grounded in the ethos of CRT and strong drama pedagogy, her work supports secondary school educators and students in building more inclusive, socially aware classrooms through ensemble building and community.
She has published on this approach and regularly partners with schools and communities to facilitate workshops, professional development, and speaking engagemnts.
Directing & Performing
Lauren was the head of the Theatre Department at School of the Future High School in Manhattan where she directed over 22 plays and musicals such as Stop Kiss, Dog Sees God, Clybourne Park, Rumors, and Little Shop of Horrors. She's also directed devised scenework and One-Acts in partnership with The Barrow Group and New York University.
Verbatim
Coaching
Lauren has coached university and secondary students, Broadway actors, and incarcerated men in verbatim performance, guiding them to work with recorded interviews and media artifacts as both artistic material and ethical responsibility. Her practice centers deep listening, vocal precision, and embodied empathy in service of honoring lived experience and narrative truth.
Whatever You Are, Be A Good One is a verbatim documentary theatre event that pulls 50 excerpts from interviews conducted across the geographical United States about political polarization ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Whatever You Are, Be A Good One was performed as the fall mainstage for the Program in Educational Theatre and was simultaneously live-streamed by NYU-TV.
IF LIGHT CLOSED ITS EYES is a verbatim documentary play, created from 100 interviews, exploring the criminal justice system and shared humanity. This production is performed, designed and produced by over 50 incarcerated artists, with the guidance of DU Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI) faculty, in Sterling Correctional Facility (SCF) in the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) and is the culmination of over two and a half years of work by the creative team.
Selected Performance Credits
Pop Star, PI, Sharkey Productions, New York City
Hopscotch, The Red Room, New York City
Vote 4 Something, MTV Productions
Law & Order SVU, NBC
Rescue Me, Sony Pictures Television
The Apprentice, Season 3, NBC
Big in ’04, VH1 Productions
Philip Block’s Emmy Fashions, PAX Network
The Nutcracker Movie, Warner Bros
The Real Dick, The Sensitive Burglar, My One Wish, Independent Film
Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Balch Arena Theatre
Assassins, Balch Arena Theatre
Rumors, Balch Arena Theatre
Angels in America, Balch Arena Theatre
The Bakkhai of Euripides, Balch Arena Theatre
Much Ado About Nothing, The Oval House, London
Current Projects
MatraSpeak is a verbatim documentary play that amplifies the voices of working mothers, bringing their real stories to life on stage. Built from 150 surveys, three focus groups, and 40 in-depth interviews with New York mothers, the play reveals how women speak about success, ambition, identity, and career.
Through a feminist lens, these voices are woven into a powerful performance that challenges stereotypes, disrupts expectations, and reframes how we understand motherhood today. Performed by award-winning Broadway actors, educators, and theatre makers, MatraSpeak merges research with artistry to illuminate the everyday experiences of mothers, and the strength, humor, and truth behind their stories.
