Director/Fight Choreographer/Producer

Dane CT Leasure (SDC) is a director, fight choreographer, and scholar-artist whose work sits at the intersection of classical rigor and visceral, physical storytelling. With a portfolio that spans nearly the entire Shakespearean canon and large-scale musical theater, Dane’s productions are defined by a "physical-first" approach—where text is the map and movement is the engine.

As the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of Rubber City Theatre, Dane has spent over a decade building a professional regional home for reimagined classics and world premieres in Ohio. His aesthetic is shaped by a deep academic foundation, holding an MFA and M.Litt in Shakespeare & Performance from Mary Baldwin University, and he is currently further expanding his dramaturgical lens as a Ph.D. candidate at Bowling Green State University.

On stage, Dane is a specialist in "heavy-lift" productions. He excels at navigating the technical and collaborative complexities of major musicals—such as his recent stagings of Sweeney Todd, Anything Goes, and The Wizard of Oz—while maintaining the intimacy and psychological stakes of contemporary drama. A dual-threat creative, he frequently serves as his own Fight Director, ensuring that physical violence and heightened movement are seamlessly integrated into the narrative arc rather than layered on top.

Whether helming the world premiere of a socially conscious new play or deconstructing a Jacobean tragedy for a modern proscenium, Dane’s work is characterized by radical accessibility, technical precision, and a relentless search for the modern pulse within inherited texts.