Andy Arden-Reese (co-Founding Artistic Director & Ensemble member)

A graduate of NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing, Andrea (Andy) Arden Reese specializes in physical acting. Andy has been living and working as an actor, director and teacher in the New York City area since 1987. She has worked with such companies as the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Primary Stages, American Stage Company, the National Playwrights’ Conference, Cape Cod Theatre Company, the Women’s Project and Productions, New Jersey Repertory, the Shoestring Players (winning the coveted Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe) and Cafe Theater, Inc. in residence at George Street Playhouse. She has participated in international performance workshops in Paris, Iceland, Amsterdam, and Moscow exploring the work of Jerzy Grotowski, Jacques Lecoq, Michael Chekhov, Joseph Chaikin, Bertolt Brecht, and Commedia dell’Arte. She traveled through Europe and Russia in an original duet performance piece, as well as created, performed and toured her one-woman show, The Cry of the Children.

Andy is the co-Founder of the theater company, THEATRE LILA, first producing work in New York City, now in residence in Madison, WI. THEATRE LILA has an outreach component whose mission is to collaborate with community-based organizations to develop arts programs offering cultural exchange and means of artistic expression. Committed to the mission of building empathetic bridges within communities, she has developed curriculum and lead workshops and performance labs with schools, theaters, and community centers in New York, Massachusetts, and the Mid West.

In 2015, as sister company to Theatre LILA, Andy co-Founded - and is co-Artistic Director with fellow artist and childhood friend Jenn Pina - ÁSA Theatre, with residencies at the Cape Cod Theatre Company, Cape Rep Theatre and Cotuit Center for the Arts.

Andy is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and has served on Adjunct Faculties at Columbia University and Drew University. She was an Artist-In-Residence at the Somerset County Performing Arts Conservatory for over 14 years, where she conceived and directed 15 new works including Exploding SUBurbia, Hamartia’s Children, Alice Underground, an original adaptation of Lord of the Flies, and Rivers. She was a featured teaching artist in the Annenberg Foundation/CPB channel The Art of Teaching the Arts video series.