Laura Penn has been Executive Director of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) since 2008. This year, she was appointed by President Biden to serve as a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Most recently, she was elected to the Board of the Entertainment Community Fund.

Under her leadership, SDC’s Membership has grown more than 100%, a result of her work expanding jurisdictions; leading bold and successful negotiations; and furthering the Union’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives and political engagement. She serves on the General Board of the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE) and is an active member of DPE’s Arts, Entertainment, and Media Industry Coordinating Committee (AEMI). She is co-Chair of the Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds, the first woman to hold a leadership position with this coalition of 18 influential unions representing workers on Broadway.

Laura serves on the Tony Awards Administration Committee and is a Tony Voter. She served as a panelist for the New York State Council for the Arts, for more than a decade was a site evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts, was Vice President of the League of Resident Theatres, and was two-term Chair of the Seattle Arts Commission. Recognized with Seattle’s Distinguished Citizen Medal, she is an advocate for civic dialogue and public participation and has been dedicated throughout her career to the idea that artistic excellence and community engagement are intrinsically connected. Laura previously served as an arts executive for Intiman Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre and began her career at D.C.’s Arena Stage, Living Stage Theatre Company. She currently teaches Labor Relations in the graduate program at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.