Hi! I'm Laura, a writer, storyteller, and theatremaker.
Theatre is my temple, my religion, and my act of faith. Strangers sit in a room together and believe.
— Harvey Firestein
A Little About Laura
Laura Thoma is a trauma-informed theatremaker and proud “late bloomer” playwright originally from Tidewater, Virginia, whose work has been published internationally.
As someone who has never fully seen herself represented on the stage, it is essential for her to explore and write women-centric stories of identity, queerness, aging, and mental health. What do these labels mean? How do they speak to women, and who gets to define them? It is compelling to Laura that labels can be debilitating or empowering, depending on whether they are placed or claimed. She is committed to using her struggles, pain, and healing to create art that supports, uplifts, and shines a light on people who often remain in the dark and go unnoticed.
Laura loved being a part of the Desert Playwrights' Retreat earlier this year, an LGBTQ retreat held in Palm Springs, where she worked on her latest play and enjoyed being in community. She's excited to be working on her play Yours in Words, with GreenStage Live Arts festival where she'll have both a development workshop and a public reading. And later this fall her play Writer's Block will be a part of The Bechdel Group's Fall Reading Series at the Tank in NYC. In 2022 she was honored to be selected for both the National Playwrights Symposium and the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive. During the pandemic, Laura wrote and directed, Me, Myself, and I starring Broadway veteran Erin Stoddard. Last year it garnered 18 awards from short film festivals around the globe, including London, Paris, and New York.
Laura is a Co-Founder of Shoreline Playwrights, a partnership that develops and produces new works. Shoreline Playwrights are the resident playwrights at Drama Works Theatre in Old Saybrook, CT. She has also developed her work with Cape May Stage, Legacy Theatre, Chicago Dramatist, Chestnut Street Playhouse, Marist College, Stage Door Theatre, Theatre Odyssey, and Pawling Theatre Exchange, where she was a playwright in residence.
In her other creative life, Laura’s a Life Coach and Motivational Speaker. She lives on the shoreline of Connecticut with her bookish wife, Chris, and their dogs, Buddy Fitzwilliam and Beatrice Dashwood.
