Laurel is a an award winning script writer and director. She teaches screenwriting, filmmaking and acting for several colleges and universities, and has taught for Stanford University’s On-line Writer’s Studio. She also teaches acting and performance for Seattle Children’s Theatre, and has taught for Cornish College of the Arts and the Tony award winning Seattle Repertory Theatre.
Laurel has received numerous awards for her writing including a Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award for her screenplay The Route. She holds an MFA in Film/Screenwriting from UCLA where she received one of ten top awards at the UCLA showcase competition. She won a Milton Sperling award for her writing and is also the recipient of the Alfred. P. Sloan writing fellowship for her screenplay Finding Grace. She has been a regular conference presenter for Women on Writing in the Bay Area.
Laurel is credited with, Man, Where’s My shoe which won the Broader Vision Award at the 2005 Garden State Film Festival , and was an official selection of the 2004 Nosotros American Latino Film Festival, and Laugh Is Hope Comedy Film Festival. Her short film, Maria in the Kitchen, won a silver medal at the 2010 Park City Film Music Festival and the Abbot Award for Best Short Film at the 2010 Other Venice Film Festival in Los Angeles. It was also an official choice of the 2011 New Filmmakers NY Film Festival, DAM Shorts Film Festival and Media Expo., in Las Vegas. It is currently licensed for distribution by KCTS channel 9, as part of the NW Reel film programming.
She has written several plays, including Choices, commissioned and performed at Open Door Theatre. She received a 2000 Special Projects Award from 4Culture for her play, Facing West, which was work shopped at Northwest Actors Studio, and she served as a panelist for the 2000 Theater Puget Sound regional theater conference, “Passion for the Art.”
As a performer, she has appeared on stage with Peg Phillips, of Northern Exposure, and at Woodinville Repertory Theatre, Alice B. Theatre, Freehold Theatre, Everett Performing Arts Center, New City Theatre, Hugo House Theater and Open Door Theatre.
Her theatrical directing includes Crimes of the Heart for the Woodinville Repertory Theater and Choices, It's Your Life, among many others for Open Door Theater, where she served as Artistic Director for several years. While with Open Door, she also performed, lectured and offered workshops nationally and internationally. She Assistant Directed for The Weir by Conor McPherson, at the award winning Intiman Theatre, and is Founding Artistic Director of Two Roads Ensemble, an educational theater company serving underpriveled youth now under the umbrella of Seattle Children's Theater.
She is a member of the Writer's Guild of America, West.