Andrea LeBlanc is an actor, educator, and writer who is committed to all aspects of performance and thrives in pioneering new performance and theater aesthetics. Her experience spans feature and independent film, traditional and experimental theater, radio, webisodes, and voice-over. She is a founding member of Blank-the-Dog Theater Company, a Los Angeles/New York theater ensemble.
Andrea co-created and performed the titular role in The Carolyn Bryant Project, co-created and directed by Nataki Garrett. The play, which conjured the specter of Emmett Till’s murder, was awarded a MAP Fund grant and began its residency at New York Theater Workshop, was part of the REDCAT Winter Studio in 2009, and workshoped at Highways Performance Space in 2011. The world premiere was produced by CalArts Center for New Performance in 2018, with subsequent presentations in 2021. It was named a New York Times Critics Pick.
Internationally, Andrea played Goneril in King Lear, the 2002 inaugural CalArts Center for Performance production directed by Travis Preston, at The Brewery in Los Angeles and at the Dijon Frictions Festival in France. In 2006, she appeared in Michel Vinaver’s 11 September 2001 directed by Robert Cantarella, at the Theatre Dijon Bourgogne, the Theatre des Treize Vents in Montpellier, and at the National Theatre in Paris. She subsequently worked with Mr. Cantarella on a devised piece for The Cent Quatre in Paris, collaborating with Julien Fisera and other Parisian directors. In 2008, she traveled to Cuba to act in Project Por Amor’s The Closest Farthest Away, a performance hybrid of theater and cinema. The U.S. premiere was subsequently presented at the Byron Carlyle Theater in Miami, Florida.
In Los Angeles, she played Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire directed by Zoe Aja Moore (Bootleg). Other credits include the world premiere of Cary Lovelace’s Couples Counseling (REDCAT); the world premiere of History of Water directed by Juli Crockett (24th Street Theatre); Janie Geiser’s play Ether Telegrams and film installation The Spider’s Wheels (Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park); Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays (REDCAT and Celebration Theatre); The Fifth String by Janet Sternberg (REDCAT); her one-woman show Benedictions (The Next Stage); Gertrude Stein’s Listen to Me directed by Michael Counts and Ken Roht; Mornings at Seven (Santa Monica Theatre Guild); Orpheus Crawling at NOW Fest (REDCAT); My Uncle Sam (Sacred Fools); Living in Boxes (The Salvation Theater); CNP’s Power Play and Willful Blindness (BBC); Romeo and Juliet directed by Derek Magyar; Eden’s Court on FunnyorDie.com; In My Arms (LACMA); and Lewis Khlar’s Sixty Six (named one of the Top 10 Films of 2015 by the New York Times).
Andrea was born and raised in the heart of Cajun country in Louisiana. She received a BA in Theatre and Political Science from Louisiana State University and her MFA in Performance from the California Institute of the Arts. She is the Interim Dean and Co-Head of BFA Acting in the CalArts School of Theater.
