Elizabeth Laidlaw is an actor, producer and director based in Chicago.  She is the founding artistic director of Lakeside Shakespeare Theatre. At LST, she produced every season from 2003 to 2018, directed Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew, and co-directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream  and most recently Henry VIII.  She helmed the critically acclaimed and award winning Girl In The Red Corner for Broken Nose Theatre for the 2018-20019 season. She assisted director Terry Kinney with East of Eden at Steppenwolf Theatre. She served as the intimacy consultant on The Doppelgänger, also at Steppenwolf, and as the violence and intimacy designer for A Moon for the Misbegotten at Writer’s Theatre. On camera, She is also the co-producer (with Mia McCullough,) of THE HAVEN web series, and the director of episode 2. Most recently, in December of 2019, she wrote, produced and directed the short film, TO BE CONTINUED, currently in post-production.  As an actor, most recently, Elizabeth was a series regular as Officer Vic Renna on THE RED LINE for Warner Bros and CBS television, written and produced by fellow Chicagoans Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss. Other television includes NCIS, CHICAGO PD, CRISIS, BETRAYAL, BOSS, and THE CHICAGO CODE. Film credits include the features, HENRY GAMBLE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY, INTO THE WAKE, EASTERN COLLEGE, DIMENSION, and THREE DAYS. Elizabeth has appeared onstage at Chicago Shakespeare, Steppenwolf, Writers Theatre, Court Theatre, The Goodman and many, many others. Her voice can be heard narrating HARD EARNED, a documentary produced by Kartemquin Films for Al-Jazeera America, and in numerous television commercials, audiobooks, and video games. Currently, Elizabeth is in production for FATHOM, a new narrative podcast from J. Barton Mitchell, serving as a producer and leading the cast as “Dr. Eva Graff.” Episodes debuted in May 2021. Elizabeth is on the adjunct faculty of Flashpoint Chicago, a campus of Columbia College Hollywood, teaching acting and directing for film, and an instructor at Vagabond School of the Arts. She has also taught acting and theatre arts at Columbia College Chicago, the Chicago Academy of the Arts, Lakeside Shakespeare Theatre, and Near North Montessori and has served as a guest artist instructor for several years at Harold Ramis Film School.

 She received her BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University and completed post-graduate Shakespeare studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art of London, UK. As always, she thanks her son for cheerfully going along with all of this over the years.