About

Laura Sturm is a professional actor, director, teacher, movement and acting coach, and intimacy choreographer. She received an MFA from Northern Illinois University and has been working professionally in the Chicago area for over 20 years.

Laura teaches a variety of different classes and workshops, but specializes in Movement for Actors (Williamson/Laban), Meisner Technique, and she is certified to teach Michael Chekhov Technique of Acting. She also teaches Period Style, Audition Skills, Scene Study, Monologue, Intimacy and Voice classes, as well as classes combining different elements. Laura is on the Adjunct Faculty at Columbia College Chicago, and has also taught at Northern Illinois University, North Central College. Governors State University, Oakton Community College, and for many years at Chicago’s professional studios The Actors’ Center and Act One Studios.

Check out her Saturday morning Movement classes!

Hate finding and performing monologues? Talk to Laura about her proven (and fun!) methods for finding and loving a monologue.

As an actor, Laura has been performing in the Chicago area for over 20 years. She most recently appeared in Titus Andronicus as Tamora and Bottle Fly at Redtwist (where she is now a company member), Prelude to a Kiss with Theatre Above the Law, and as Emma in Bluebird Arts’ production of Stupid Fucking Bird. Laura has been seen with Organic Theater Company in such roles as Emilie in Lauren Gunderson’s Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight and as Marie Antoinette in Gunderson’s The Revolutionists. Other roles include Blanche in Streetcar, Titania, Getrude, and many others. She has had the privilege of working with many Chicago other companies, including Northlight, New Colony, Victory Gardens, Remy Bumppo, Promethean, Mary Arrchie, Bailiwick, Signal, Raven, Quest, Chicago Danztheatre, and Polarity, as well as with the Texas Shakespeare Festival. Laura has also directed in Chicago for many years. With Organic, she directed the Jeff Recommended production of Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play and the world premiere of Chicago playwright Barbara Lhota’s Phantom Pain. She has also directed Sheridan’s 18th Century period piece The Rivals, as well as the musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Since 2021, Laura has become an Intimacy Choreographer, working in Chicago and with the Constructivists, a few years ago named the Best New Theater Company in Milwaukee by Milwaukee Magazine.

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Intimacy Director for Redtwist Theatre’s Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties - By Jen Silverman - “In this phenomenally femme play, five women explore everything from pussy to Shakespeare. Whether you’re a rich Betty, a lonely Betty, a butch Betty, a Betty who loves cars, or a Betty who just needs to punch someone, Jen Silverman’s Collective Rage: A Play In 5 Betties; In Essence, A Queer And Occasionally Hazardous Exploration; Do You Remember When You Were In Middle School And You Read About Shackleton And How He Explored The Antarctic?; Imagine The Antarctic As A Pussy And It’s Sort Of Like That will leave you satisfied.”

Movement and Intimacy Choreographer for the constructivist’s Bed and Breakfast of the Damned by Cameron McNary. “this World Premiere … is a classic, door-slamming, Feydeau-style sex farce... with zombies. When young couple Ben and Melissa find shelter from the zombie apocalypse at the cozy pug-themed ‘Snug as a Pug’ bed and breakfast, they think all their troubles are behind them. But between the sweet but hapless Carol, her potentially homicidal husband Dan, the drug-addled owner Carl, and his deeply sociopathic, sexually voracious wife Sheryl, it turns out the real apocalypse is just getting started. Bodies pile up, illicit affairs are revealed, and everything comes to a bloody, explosive climax in a perfect, frantic storm of zombie bites and slamming closet doors. Come for the pug throw pillows and the three kinds of chamomile tea. Stay... FOREVER.”

UPCOMING PROJECTS:

Teaching Actor and Character and Callback Audition Workshop at Columbia College Chicago in Fall 2025

Finishing play a day in July - plays have been read, writing is still coming out. Stay tuned on instagram and FB.