Shirley Lauro

Shirley Shapiro Mezvinsky Lauro (née Shapiro) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. Her plays include A Piece of my Heart, Open Admissions, The Radiant, All Through the Night and others. Her novel is The Edge and she edited an anthology, Political Plays by American Women, with Alexis Greene. Lauro was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, to Helen Davidson Shapiro and Phillip Shapiro. Her early works, such as The Contest and Sunday Go To Meetin' , were influenced by her family and the local community. She studied acting at the Preparatory Theatre program of Drake University in Des Moines, performing with their traveling children's theater group throughout Iowa. Ms. Lauro graduated cum laude from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois with a degree in theatre and speech. She received her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in theatre/English where she studied fiction writing with Elizabeth Bowen and did post-graduate work at Columbia University in creative writing as well as at City University of New York where she studied dramatic criticism with Harold Clurman. She taught graduate playwriting among other courses at New York University, Yeshiva University, Hunter College, Hofstra University and City University of New York. Her experience at City University inspired Lauro's Tony-nominated Broadway Play, Open Admissions, which Lauro adapted for a CBS TV special. Lauro has a daughter, Andrea Mezvinsky, from her marriage to Norton Mezvinsky, Ph.D, which ended in divorce. She married Louis Lauro, Ph.D. a psychoanalyst. Lauro resides on the Upper West Side of New York.