Born and raised in Washington DC, Lila has developed and directed work with theaters all over the country, including The Civilians, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Luna Stage, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Portland Stage Company, Folger Theatre, the First National Tour of The Bridges of Madison County, and the Source Festival. Her work has been seen internationally at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Directors Lab North, and an Associate Member of SDC. She received the IRAM award for excellence in new play development and the MFA Fellowship from the University of Iowa. Lila holds a BA from Wesleyan University in the College of Letters, an interdisciplinary program in history, literature, philosophy, and Spanish, and an MFA in Directing from the University of Iowa. She was a member of the 2021-22 R&D Group at The Civilians and a 2021 resident at Arteles Creative Center.

Outside of the rehearsal room, Lila can be found biking, playing taiko, and training handbalancing with New York’s circus community. She also writes What’s On, a newsletter about exciting theatre to see in New York, online, and elsewhere.

Lila Rachel Becker (she/her) is a DC-raised, Brooklyn-based director, teacher, organizer, acrobat, and one half of Portmanteau. She stages joyful, rigorous productions of formally inventive new work and irreverent reimaginings of classics that challenge us to think and act with radical hope. Her work explores how individuals and societies are shaped by power, history, and inherited trauma, and is deeply informed by her activist upbringing and experience living in communities across the US. She uses theatre to counter narratives of the inevitability of destruction and domination, challenge orthodoxy, and fight the increasing digitization of our lives.