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Laura Penn is in her 12th season as managing director of Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington. During her tenure, INTIMAN has produced such world premieres as Singing Forest by Craig Lucas; Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza, a new musical based on the novel by Elizabeth Spencer; and Joan Holden’s Nickel and Dimed, a commissioned adaptation of the non-fiction bestseller by Barbara Ehrenreich. She is the driving force behind numerous educational programs and community collaborations at INTIMAN, including Angels in Seattle, inspired by Angels in America; Youth and Business Leaders Day, held in conjunction with Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Community Committees for such plays as Nickel and Dimed, Homebody/Kabul and Black Nativity; and public programs around The American Cycle, a five-year series of classic American stories and civic engagement.
The American Cycle
In 2004, INTIMAN launched The American Cycle, a unique initiative that includes five classic American stories over five years, collaborative partnerships, and community and education initiatives for multigenerational audiences. The American Cycle is an opportunity for INTIMAN audiences and our larger community to engage in a long-term conversation exploring, through the prism of artists and in a local context, how we came to be who we are and who we might become. Guided by a Community Committee of civic leaders, the initiative brings our region a wide range of free public programs that explore the local resonance of themes and ideas generated by the works on stage. These programs include community readings, humanities forums, an original creative response to each season’s play created by local high school students, and additional arts education programming for multigenerational audiences. A Core Audience also works with INTIMAN to make connections between arts participation and civic engagement.
We are currently in the midst of planning for the current production of The American Cycle, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck’s epic, Pulitzer Prize-winning story of Tom Joad and his journey across America. Community programming around The Grapes of Wrath will look at such issues as the devastating economic hardship of the Great Depression, the lives of migrant workers, and the rise of the labor movement. In addition, we will focus on environmental awareness around the natural resources of Puget Sound and Eastern Washington. Steinbeck’s dramatic evocation of the Dust Bowl’s “scarred earth” is mirrored today in concerns about our own ecosystem and Washington State’s connections to our land and water. INTIMAN is working collaboratively with leading environmental groups and civic leaders in our region to explore this parallel and share resources for how we can be responsible stewards of our environment.
Laura, you have been involved in creating new communities for the theater for some time now—what got you started doing that? A lot of people use lip service, but you seem to have a real passion and commitment.
Like many people who turn to the theatre, I suppose, it was in my childhood, one of my first outlets as a “tortured adolescent poet.” I found a sense of community in the arts that has never left me. As I began working professionally, no matter what I was doing, it always circled back to community. I was blessed to begin my career at Arena Stage, where I soon moved into marketing it was for the Living Stage program. When I worked at Seattle Rep my proudest achievements were building a national touring program, creating a long-range cultural diversity plan and helping to design arts-in-education programs. At Intiman, I’m happiest when I’m sharing ideas with and learning from people in other disciplines, other fields, who can help us extend the circle of our work. It’s a way of both creating and living, which is something Bob Alexander of Living Stage really articulated for me—in the moment of creation, we are at our most whole and sanest.
Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, about the partition of India in 1947
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol
The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Graces: Prayers and Poems for Everyday Meals and Special Occasions by June Cotner
Presidents of the United Stages, Love Everybody
Pearl Jam, Ten
The Roches, Zero Church
India Arie, Acoustic Soul
Anything choreographed by Donald Byrd
Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Einstein
A Thousand Places to See Before You Die
New York Times Week in Review
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