Laura Epperson

Laura Epperson is a teaching artist, performer, and community collaborator. Through the Performing Justice Project (PJP), she devises original performances with youth artists that explore the intersection of identity, power, and (in)justice. She has co-directed projects with teens in foster care in Austin (TX), youth theatre board members in Boston (MA), and young adults with disabilities in Warsaw (Poland).

Laura has worked with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (DC), Drama for Schools (TX), and Creative Arts Team (NY) to develop arts-full approaches to teaching and learning across curricula and age range. She’s led social justice arts residences at over 20 New York City public schools and facilitated professional learning intensives for educators in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Taiwan, and throughout the United States.

Laura has taught and appeared as a guest artist-lecturer at Virginia Tech, UT Austin, James Madison University, and Austin Community College. She received the American Alliance for Theare and Education (AATE) Distinguished Thesis Award for her research on the aesthetics of healing in PJP. Laura frequently presents her practice-based work at professional conferences including National Guild for Community Arts Educators, International Teaching Artist Collaborative, Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, and AATE. 

Laura has a B.S. in Theatre Performance from University of Evansville and an M.F.A. in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities from University of Texas, Austin. She is thrilled to collaborate with CPP students to use storytelling, embodiment, play, and inquiry to create community-engaged project-performances that imagine justice and joyful futures.