Edie L. Norlin, MEd, is an education and theater lecturer at Ohio State Newark. Her first acting performance was at five years of age and her first professional role was at age 12. Active in theater and musical theater at The University of Oklahoma, she graduated with a teaching license in English, speech and drama, and taught secondary school for many years.
Since college graduation, she's been involved with numerous theater companies in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Ohio including The Masquers, Inc.; The Theater Project; Rosebriar Shakespeare Company; Weathervane Playhouse; Licking County Players; and The Ohio State University at Newark theatre department. For the last 18 years, she's been an active director. Some of her directing credits include Mousetrap, The Real Inspector Hound, Rodgers' & Hammerstein's Cinderella and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). She has been the artistic director of the Black Box Theater for 10 years.
Always a busy actress, Edie has performed a one-woman show based on the life of the 19th century American Shakespearean actress, Julia Marlowe, for Riverboat Excursions (Ohio River cruises). Other favorite roles include: Queen Elizabeth in Richard III; Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday; and Anna in The King and I. During the 2017-18 Black Box Theater season, she performed in the two-character play Love Letters. In 2019 she performed once again on the Black Box stage in A Reader's Theater for the Declining Actor which she wrote with and co-starred with Dennis Kohler.
Along with teaching at Ohio State Newark for the last 25 years, Edie has continued her work bringing theater to area school children through several different projects. She's directed three science plays —Invention, Chemistry and Electricity — produced by The Midland Theatre in collaboration with The Works Museum for area middle schools. Commissioned by A Call to College, she wrote a play based on money management for fourth graders that she's directed for the last three years (and counting) servicing all seven elementary schools in the Newark City Schools district. Edie also has provided all-day theater workshops for middle-schoolers through the Licking County Educational Services Center as well as serving as a judge for their gifted and talented students in the performing arts.