Meet Laura Elizabeth Dennis
Hi. I'm Laura.Let’s Create.
I’m a New York City–based actor, stage manager, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. My background in psychotherapy—including training in trauma-informed care, CBT, Jungian analysis, the Gottman Method, and Emotionally Focused Therapy—deeply informs my work, shaping how I understand human behavior, emotional patterns, and relationships.
Over the past four years, I’ve trained in Meisner technique, Uta Hagen–based work, and improvisation while building experience across short films, student films, theater, and commercial projects. I’m drawn to complex, character-driven stories that explore the contradictions of human nature with honesty and depth.
I’ll next be starring in A Humorless Exploration of Humanity, making its world debut at The Manifestival.
The Work
I’m a New York City–based actor, stage manager, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist originally from Chandler, Arizona. My work is rooted in a deep curiosity about human behavior, shaped both by my clinical background and my experiences in the world beyond traditional training spaces.
I hold a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Counseling from Prescott College and a background in social work from Arizona State University, with clinical training in trauma, relationships, and emotional patterning. That perspective informs how I approach character—looking beyond surface behavior to understand what drives people, where they get stuck, and how they change.
As an actor, I’ve spent the past several years training across Meisner, Uta Hagen, and improvisational techniques. I studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse as a full-time conservatory student with teachers including Gary Kingston, Todd Susman, and Sandy Faison, and have continued my work through advanced scene study and sensory training. I’ve also trained at HB Studio, with Michael Luggio, and in physical and technical disciplines including Alexander Technique, Body Intelligence, dialect work, and stage/weapons combat.
My work is also shaped by time spent outside the studio. I’m trained in survival and primitive backpacking, and spent a year backpacking through the terrains of Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. I’ve also worked as a dog musher in Alaska, lived and worked on an off-the-grid farm in Costa Rica, and volunteered with an NGO in Cambodia—experiences that deepened my understanding of resilience, culture, and the many ways people adapt to their environments.
Working both onstage and behind the scenes as a stage manager has shaped my respect for the collaborative nature of storytelling—how performances are built moment by moment, and the care it takes to support a creative process.
Over time, my interest in storytelling expanded into screenwriting as a natural extension of my acting work—a way to explore character from the inside out and build narratives grounded in emotional specificity. Whether acting or writing, I’m drawn to stories that are intimate, intelligent, and rooted in lived human experience.