Leah E. Cooper is an artist, leader, facilitator, and consultant based in Saint Paul, MN. She specializes in activating creativity and collaboration to empower individual and collective vision.
Leah is the Co-Artistic Director for Wonderlust Productions, a multicultural, multidisciplinary performance ensemble that illuminates community stories through collaborative arts experiences, including epic plays, online video series, a podcast, and most recently, the graphic novel In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project.
She has directed at many Twin Cities theaters as well as for the Breaking Ice (diversity and inclusion) program at Pillsbury House Theatre. She was the first Executive Director of the Minnesota Theater Alliance, serving all 450 theaters in the state, from 2010 to 2016; Co-Founder and Partner at MinnesotaPlaylist.com, the state’s performing arts trade journal, from 2008-2017; and the Executive Director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival from 2001-2006.
Leah is also a facilitator and consultant in community engagement, organizational development, and ritual making with a trauma-informed and human-centered approach to complexity and change. Prior to her transition to working in the performing arts in 2001, Leah worked by day in the corporate sector as a software engineer and business consultant for ten years.
She is currently writing a memoir about survival and magic.
