Zoe Lesser is a director and choreographer, working across theater, opera, and immersive experiences.
She re-imagines canonical and modern work to meet the contemporary moment, with an interdisciplinary approach that collides music, text, and movement to create transformative and cathartic experiences, as well as develops new work with playwrights and composers from the ground up. Recent productions include the southwestern premiere of Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery and a multimedia, body-horror re-imagining of Agnes of God by John Pielmeier.
Zoe has worked at companies across the United States including The Mercury Store, Opera Saratoga, West Edge Opera, Denver Center Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Aspen Music Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. She is a frequent collaborator with the New Mexico Actors Lab.
She has had the privilege of continually assisting brilliant directors Les Waters, Mary Birnbaum, Shelley Butler, Sara Erde, and Greg Eldridge.
Zoe is a co-founder of the immersive theater company, The Exodus Ensemble, in Santa Fe, NM. She collaborated and originated roles in their productions of IVANOV and BATHSHEBA, and performed with them in an original variety show on George RR Martin’s train experience, Sky Railway. She continues to support the ensemble’s work, creating narrative driven, multi-media saturated, irreverent adaptations of classic texts that take small audiences on thrilling, unforgettable, experiences.
Zoe’s work in Tap Dance has been presented at Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts in Albuquerque and at the Detroit City Dance Festival. She has performed alongside musicians Eliana Joy O’Brien, Doug & The Dyin’, was a member of the feminist ragtime group, Pussy Rag, and continues to dance in theaters, dive bars, street corners, and moving trains across the USA. She performed with Chicago Tap Theatre andd is an alumna of Jacob’s Pillow. Zoe re-build the Tap Dance program at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico in Santa Fe after the pandemic, and currently serves on Faculty at The Colburn School.
She is currently collaborating on new works for theater and opera with Lulu Fairclough Stewart, Gregory S. Moss, Kamila Boga, Kallan Dana, Julia Moss, Claire Bierman, and Calvin Hitchcock.
Upcoming:
Directing staged readings of new plays by the MFA Playwrights for the Department of Theatre & Dance at University of New Mexico - Albuquerque.
Directing a re-imagined production of Cowboy Mouth by Patti Smith & Sam Shepard, set in a 90s grunge recording studio at the New Mexico Actors Lab, running from September 11th through September 28th. Tickets are available here.
As Artist-in-Residence at the cell with Playwright Kallan Dana, directing a workshop and staged reading of Kallan’s new play, Transgressions on October 7th.
Associate Directing The Reservoir by Jake Brasch, directed by Shelley Butler at Atlantic Theatre Company, running through February and March 2026. Tickets available in December 2025.