Stephen Laughton Named Associate Artistic Director of Echo Theater Company

Acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Stephen Laughton has joined The Echo Theater Company as associate artistic director, completing the leadership team of Los Angeles' leading producer of original plays alongside founding artistic director Chris Fields and associate artistic director Elana Luo.

As associate artistic director, Laughton will help shape season programming, hire artists—including playwrights, actors, guest directors, designers and composers—and contribute to strategic decisions across the company's operations, including marketing, development, community engagement and new initiatives.

The Echo recently produced the acclaimed West Coast premiere of Laughton's play One Jewish Boy following successful productions in London's West End and Washington D.C. Laughton wrote Feast, an immersive political horror play, for the Echo's associate company, and the theatrical protest piece, The Enablers, which he co-created with Fields, played to capacity audiences last season.

Laughton is an associate artist with the Astrophysics team at the American Museum of Natural History. His theater work includes the immersive theater-science collaboration A Life Inside, which transferred to New York after a sold-out run in D.C.; Velocity, staged as part of a gala performance at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, where it was the first play ever to be staged in a major planetarium anywhere in the world; and Technicolor, which will begin its UK tour in February 2027.

Founded in 1997, the Echo Theater Company has built a reputation for producing and developing adventurous new work. Under the artistic leadership of Chris Fields, the company has championed playwrights for a quarter century, producing and commissioning numerous world premieres and introducing Los Angeles to playwrights David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp and Sarah Ruhl. The Echo has won countless Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, LA Weekly and Stage Raw awards, and is frequently cited on end-of-the-year “Best of Lists” including by the Los Angeles Times, LA Observed and NPR affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM, among others. The company was anointed “Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays” by the LA Weekly and was a recipient of a “Kilroy Cake Drop” to honor its efforts to produce women and trans writers. KCRW declared that “Echo Theater Company is on a fierce journey,” and Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty called it “the most vital center for offbeat drama in Los Angeles.” The Echo was honored by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle with the prestigious Margaret Harford Award for “Excellence In Theatre.”

For more information about the Echo Theater Company, visit echotheatercompany.com.

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