Laura Penn, Executive Director of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), joined the organization in 2008, after a 25-year management career in the League of Resident Theatres (LORT). Under her leadership SDC membership has grown 35%, a result of successful expansion of jurisdiction nationally and negotiations for SDC including Broadway, LORT, and Off-Broadway while supporting members in complex, high-profile positions.
In her role, Laura keeps a keen eye on the challenges currently facing directors and choreographers, while forging partnerships with constituents and expanding the union’s reach and scope within the industry. She spearheads challenge-specific initiatives to educate and empower SDC members and partners, with particular attention to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Political Engagement. In 2016, SDC joined the Department of Professional Employees, AFI-CIO (DPE). Laura is Co-Chair of the Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds (COBUG); a founder and Co-Chair of Broadway Salutes, an annual event celebrating Broadway artists; serves on the Tony Awards Administration Committee; and is a Tony voter.
In 2013, she received the Encore Community Services Award for contributions to the betterment of the Times Square community. The SDC Foundation (SDCF), the non-for-profit sister organization of SDC, has also been impacted by her tenure having grown its programming for mid-career artists, establishing the Zelda Fichandler Award, and most recently the Gordon Davidson Award for lifetime achievement in the regional theater. SDC Journal, a quarterly magazine dedicated to craft, was established in 2012, and in 2014 Laura launched an effort to advance the crafts of directing and choreography through new relationships between SDC and the Academy, by creating a new Academic Associate Membership program. In addition, SDC is now a member of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).
Prior to SDC, she was the Managing Director of Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, a position she held for 14 years in partnership with Artistic Directors Bartlett Sher and Warner Shook. During her tenure, the theater produced the work of many of the country’s leading directors and playwrights. She served as an advocate and catalyst for civic dialogue and community building in the Puget Sound, and received the “Seattle Distinguished Citizen” medal from Mayor Paul Schell in 2001. Intiman was the first regional theater awarded the rights to produce Tony Kushner’s two-part epic Angels in America after it won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. Later, the Intiman shepherded the development and premiere of the Tony Award-winning Light in the Piazza. In 2006 the Theatre was given the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.
Also while in Seattle, she served as Vice President of LORT, as a two-term Chair for the Seattle Arts Commission, and as Production Manager for the Seattle/Soviet Theatre Exchange traveling to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and Moscow.
She has served on panels for The Dramatists Guild, United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT), Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the Commercial Theatre Institute, KCACTF, and Seattle’s Forum on Race. At Harvard, she participated in Anna Deavere Smith’s Institute for the Arts and Civic Dialogue and for ACT II, a convening of commercial and non-profit theatre leaders. Prior to Intiman, Laura worked at Seattle Repertory Theatre as Associate Managing Director and in communications at Arena Stage. Laura is an avid traveler and enjoys spending time with her family.