Laura Leininger-Campbell
Award-winning playwright and actor
Laura Leininger-Campbell is a playwright and actor whose work probes the tension between hardship and hope. Her plays, including Eminent Domain, Worms, Terminal, and her latest, Buried Phoenix, illuminate the character we summon in the face of adversity.
In 2020, she wrote and directed the haunting but humorous film The Phantom of Knockmourne Hall. She’s also brought literary classics to life for the Joslyn Literary Festival, crafting vivid stage adaptations of works like Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars and Dangerous Beauty, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
“I loved this play. LOVED it. It only takes one person to take a stand so others will follow. I take a standing ovation for Eminent Domain.”
“Leininger-Campbell’s superb command of language, her indelible characters and her sublime storytelling are life affirming. She challenges me to go deeper—both in my writing and in my life—and she challenges all of us to not be afraid of what we find in those dark inner recesses. “
“She has insights and ways to express them equal to produced writers with much more experience. She makes these characters complex and substantial. The love radiates.”
Awards and Honors
Writing
- Finalist: Buried Phoenix, Ashland National Playwrights Festival 2023
- Finalist: Buried Phoenix, Seven Devils Play Foundary 2023
- Semi-Finalist: Buried Phoenix, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference 2023
- Quarterfinalist: Buried Phoenix, Screencraft Stage Play Contest 2023
- Runner-Up: Buried Phoenix, Henley Rose Playwriting Competition 2022
- Resident Playwright, Great Plains Theatre Commons 2021
- Finalist: Eminent Domain, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference 2016
- Playlab Selection: Worms, Great Plains Theater Conference 2019
- Playlab Selection: Terminal, Great Plains Theater Conference 2017
- Quarterfinalist: Worms, ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest 2019
- Best Original Script: Eminent Domain, Omaha Entertainment Awards 2019
- Best Drama: Eminent Domain, Omaha Entertainment Awards 2019
- Outstanding New Script: L’Chaim, Theater Arts Guild Awards 2017
Acting
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Theatre Arts Guild: Best Actress 2016, Untitled Series #7
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Theatre Arts Guild: Best Supporting Actress 2013, Recommended Reading For Girls
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Barbara Ford Award: Omaha Playhouse 2012-2013, Recommended Reading For Girls
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Omaha Entertainment Arts Award: Best Supporting Actress 2013, Recommended Reading for Girls
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Omaha Entertainment Arts Award: Best Supporting Actress 2012, Lend Me A Tenor
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Theatre Arts Guild: Best Featured Actress 2012, Lend Me A Tenor
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Omaha Playhouse Elaine Jabenis Award: 2011-2012, Lend Me A Tenor
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Omaha Entertainment Arts Award: Best Supporting Actress 2011, Distant Music
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Omaha Entertainment Arts Award: Best Supporting Actress 2006, Hamlet
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Performanance Omaha Award: Best Supporting Actress 2004, Othello
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Lee Strasberg Institute/Connecticut College Acting Scholarship, 1991
Laura’s Story
From Omaha Magazine “Curtain Calling”
by Sarah Wengert
Growing up, Laura Leininger-Campbell was an introverted bookworm who dreamt of being an actor and had an imagination that ran as wild as her naturally curly hair. She would go on to establish her own singular course in the arts, with a steadfast love of theater and storytelling acting as her compass.
Leininger-Campbell avidly participated in high school plays before earning a degree in theater from Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. She’d have her first run-in with the legacy of famed playwright Eugene O’Neill there—though it wouldn’t be her last.
“They had a great theater program and many ties to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center the next town over in Waterford,” she says. “New London is actually where O’Neill lived. His childhood home—the Monte Cristo Cottage in Long Day’s Journey Into Night—is there.”
After college, Leininger-Campbell moved to New York City, where her expectations of an acting career were humbled by the reality of paying the bills. Three years later, she realized her day job with hat designer Tracey Tooker left little time for auditions, and the then-nebulous-to-her concept of networking.
“They do a much better job teaching kids to manage creative careers now,” she says. “I ended up getting pretty fried, so I gave up on it, moved back to Omaha, and started over. I told myself I wouldn’t do theater anymore, and tried to make peace with that.”
But her calling kept calling. A role in Brigit Saint Brigit Theatre’s The Cherry Orchard helped her establish strong ties there, which extended throughout the Omaha theater community as she took on more roles. Leininger-Campbell found herself living the dream on her own terms.
“I was actually enjoying a life of theater and making a living,” she says.
Leininger-Campbell’s next star turn emerged when her career as a playwright germinated. She says it began with several adaptations she wrote for the Joslyn Castle Literary Festival: Wuthering Heights, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Jewel of Seven Stars.
“At that point, I really liked the idea of writing—taking specific ideas from the [original] writer and putting them on the page in a compelling way,” she says. While she plans to do some acting in 2018, Leininger-Campbell is fully embracing the role of playwright. This year, audiences can anticipate Leininger-Campbell’s Terminal. The comedy tells the story of a group of people stuck inside an airport terminal who “get on each others’ nerves and slowly their humanity begins to melt away.”
Leininger-Campbell says her biggest wish is more time to write, and while time is a finite resource, she has ideas aplenty.
“I like to identify stories and then just tuck them away, to mine later,” says Leininger-Campbell. “I love the process of writing and bringing those stories to life.”
photograph by Bill Sitzmann for Omaha Magazine