Writer Laura Annawyn Shamas was born and raised in Oklahoma, and has lived in various places across the U.S., including Tulsa, Denver, and Los Angeles. She is a playwright, author, screenwriter, and mythologist.
She graduated from UCLA (B.A. in Theater Arts), the University of Colorado at Boulder (M.A. in English/Creative Writing), and Pacifica Graduate Institute (M.A. and Ph.D. in Mythological Studies). Shamas began studying mythology in 1997, and received her Ph.D. in 2003.
Shamas has written over thirty plays, has had many plays and essays published, as well as a dramatic writing textbook (Playwriting for Theater, Film and Television, 1991). Her archetypal study "We Three": The Mythology of Shakespeare's Weird Sisters was published in 2007 by Peter Lang USA. She has worked in film as a screenwriter and as a consultant.
Her multicultural background includes Chickasaw, English, French, Irish, Lebanese, and Scottish heritage. She is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation and is married to award-winning playwright/screenwriter Jon Klein. Her playwriting is archived in the Native American Women Playwrights Archive at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
For more information, please read Paula Cizmar's profile of Laura and her work on NYTheatre.com, and Tom Pearson's interview with Laura for The Onlline Journal of The Public Theater's Native Theater Festival.
Memberships: Women In Film, League of Professional Theatre Women, Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative, ICWP, Writers Guild of America west, and the Dramatists Guild.