“Everything is propelled by the singular directorial vision of Eddie DeHais, who excels at creating striking tableaux and evoking remarkably tactile worlds.”
Eddie DeHais (they/them) is an award-winning Franco-American director, writer, designer, and choreographer. Eddie is a worlds-creator and world-traveler making wildly visceral experiences in theater, opera, and interdisciplinary events. Their 18-year background creating rigorous devised physical theater collides with their expertise with traditional dramaturgy, treating every process with infectious curiosity that inspires artists and audiences alike.
Eddie's expertise is developing new shows with an ensemble or playwright, and reimagining classics. Their shows are marked by their transformative nature, imaginative playfulness, fierce compassion, and strong sensorial visual aesthetic, appealing to audiences hungry for an authentically alive experience.
Eddie is a transgender director with a keen ability to bring people together, and a powerful sense of how storytelling allows people to see and hear each other across difference. Creating inclusive, diverse, and equitable theater is embedded into their process and reflected in their product.
They are a TEDx speaker and received their MFA in Directing from Brown-Trinity Rep.
In 22-23, Eddie has projects in Paris, NYC, DC, Boston, Geneva, San Diego, and Seattle among others. They currently reside in the NYC area.
Representation:
GURMAN AGENCY LLC
Susan Gurman, Agent
susan@gurmangency.com
212-749-4618
Eddie working as the Choreographic & Intimacy Consultant on Salome at the Opera de Paris, Bastille. Director Lydia Steier, John Dazsak as Herodes
Current Projects
Recent Work
Death & the Maiden
by Ariel Dorfman
Featuring an original score crafted by Tatar composer Adeliia Faizullini sung by Cuban singer/activist Aliana De La Guardia. Designs by Zoë Hurwitz, SeifAllah Salotto-Cristobal, Amanda Downing Carney, and Daniel Baker of Broken Chord.
Laughter and lethality intertwine in this dynamic reimagining of a modern classic. After being kidnapped and tortured under a repressive regime, Paulina encounters a man she believes to be the one behind her suffering. But during her quest for justice, the lines between Paulina’s reality and fantasy quickly begin to blur. With a biting sense of humor and thrilling original music, Death and the Maiden asks how to heal our greatest wounds when world events tear us apart, and explores the dangers in believing the lies we tell ourselves to cope.
“Eddie is the kind of director who asks you to walk off a cliff in the name of making good theater, which seems like a bad idea until you realize that it’s an invitation to fly.”
SALOME at the Opera de Paris
director: Lydia Steier
(Choreographic & Intimacy Consultant)
Le Monde: “The opera composed by Richard Strauss spreads like wildfire, zigzagging in sensuality before exploding in eroticism. At the Opéra Bastille, we immediately get to the heart of the matter. At least, in the upper part of the plateau which, behind a long bay window, hosts a party that looks like an orgy. Blowjobs, sodomy, masturbation... there's something for everyone.”
Age of Bees
by Tira Palmquist
Portland Phoenix Review: “Under DeHais’s direction, song and sound are heightened among the actors as well as in the sound design. Mel announces herself by slamming a book or kicking a trash can. Jonathan enters the orchard with a cacophony of beeps, the jangling of the chain link, and a heavy, limping stomp of his one good foot. And when the women sing hymns and gospel, in transporting harmony, the beauty of the songs is deepened by how clearly precious they are to those who sing them.”
Selected works
“Human connection is of supreme importance in this new world, and under the direction of DeHais, the characters’ interactions are alive with collaborative physicality. Characters often form striking tableaux of care-taking and bodily vulnerability”
Silhouette
Scary Mary and the Nightmares Nine
BIG BAD
Into the Deeps
Sundown at the Devil’s House
Mad Scientisti Cabaret
Digital Projects
created Remotely during the Pandemic
