We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Delhauer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

A few projects come to mind, but the one that feels most timely is a film I just completed. The film is called ‘Ow.’ and it’s a (kind of) comedic short, based on my real experience navigating the American healthcare system with a super fun disease called, Endometriosis. As with many female-specific ailments, not a lot of funding or research have gone into understanding or treating this disease, and therefor it was a very long, and excruciatingly painful journey for me to receive a diagnosis. I wanted to make a film about that whole process, not because I feel my story is so unique, but because it is so devastatingly common. Approximately 1 in 9 women has Endo, and yet it can still often take nearly a decade to be diagnosed. And the only mention of it I was hearing in the media, especially when I was diagnosed back in 2017, were the stories of a couple celebrities with Endo who talked about the need to advocate for yourself so you can get surgery. And while, advocating for yourself with doctors is so important, and surgery may be the answer for some, I became quickly aware that often the advocating we need to be doing, is to ask our doctors not to jump immediately to surgery as the solution. Because in fact, for some, surgery can make the problem much worse.

I met a 27 year old the year after I was diagnosed who also had Endo and whose doctor had insisted they remove her uterus to treat the disease when she was 25. The hysterectomy sent her immediately into menopause at 25 years old, and the kicker? 2 years post-op, she was still in so much pain. She still had Endometriosis. Nothing had improved.

I felt it most appropriate in making this film to simply tell my story. So our film, ‘Ow.’ is a narrative short based on my real life experience. However, having gained much insight into the challenges of so many other people in female bodies suffering from not only Endometriosis, but also PCOS, excruciating menstruation, infertility, adverse reactions to birth control, lack of access to healthcare, and essentially no support or education as we navigate peri-menopause and menopause (just to name a few), I felt it irresponsible to only tell my story and leave it at that. While I find it incredibly powerful to tell one’s story, and I hope that in doing so I will help some others feel seen, I also recognize that everyone’s exact experience is different and the care they need can vary greatly. So I decided to build the resource I wish I had when I was first experiencing the symptoms of this disease.

I wished there were a place I could have gone to hear lots of other people’s stories and see many different resources, (not just doctor referrals). I wanted to know how what I ate and drank affected my body with this disease, and what I should be eating through all the phases of the female life cycle. I wanted to see people making art about their experiences. I wanted a community to connect with, to learn with and to heal with.

So the film ends with a link to this website I’ve built (and am continuing to build & expand), which I hope we can grow into that exact resource I was so desperate for seven years ago. Within the last seven years I’ve gained so much information as I’ve navigated my own health and spoke with other people in female bodies as they’ve navigated theirs, and I’m by no means an expert, but I feel very confident about knowing what questions to ask. So on the site I will continue to post interviews with folks who are more knowledgeable than I am on various topics pertaining to female health. We’ll also have recipes, articles, art and links to resources, as well as opportunities for others to share their stories.

As I’m writing this, the film hasn’t premiered yet, but the number of people who have heard me talk about it and their eyes go wide and teary as they share with me that they have Endo, or their sister does, or their daughter. That’s what has made this project feel like a meaningful one. (That and all the brilliant people who collaborated with me on this.) We’re premiering ‘Ow.’ at the LA Shorts International Film Festival this summer, and then touring the film festival circuit, plus we’ll be hosting a few of our own screenings. After that the film will be available online.

Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Primarily, I’m a theatre kid. I’ve been performing on stage since I was eight and I saw my big brother in a play and thought, “I wanna do that.” I remember how funny he was, how he made this whole audience laugh, and how magical that felt. To be able to move a whole theatre full of adult strangers, make them feel something, by simply using your imagination and playing pretend. Theatre’s been kinda like church to me ever since then. Improv and comedy in particular have been especially influential for me as a performer since then.

I moved to NYC for theatre conservatory in 2010 and began producing theatre in the city in 2013. I ran a few different theatre companies and somewhere along the line also became a private chef and recipe developer, cuz money. But also nutrition and the culinary arts had lured me into a secondary artform when I realized how drastically what we eat affects our health and the health of the planet. These things seem obvious to me now, but it’s wild that none of this is taught in school, and that never in my life had a doctor told me what to eat to make me feel better.

I was the co-author and recipe developer of a cookbook called The Vegucated Family Table with Filmmaker and Activist Marisa Miller Wolfson who had a dream of writing a cookbook specifically for parents wanting to raise plant-based families. Nowadays I develop recipes specific to supporting female bodies through all phases of their life-cycle and I also do eco-friendly craft services on film sets here in LA.

But my greatest love is still the theatre. I have an ongoing theatre project I created called ‘HI, MOM!’ which is a series of monologues written by me and several other playwrights and comedy writers each from the perspectives of someone (or something) in relation to the climate crisis. It’s a living and breathing, ever evolving project that we’ve performed versions of in NYC, LA and Texas. Each writer is encouraged to tell a story of a ‘Character of Climate Change’ whatever that means to them. We have pieces from the perspectives of mothers, of children, endangered animals, activists, and one of my favorite characters is actually a 60 yr old man who has worked his whole life for the oil and gas industry, and loves it. We’re always looking for new writers, new perspectives and new characters. This project is one of my favorite things to work on.

I started the project because I found that even in the most theatre-rich city in the world, NYC, I could hardly find anyone making any type of environmental theatre. And the few bits of it I did come across made me want to jump off a bridge. It was all very depressing. And hey, it’s an overwhelming topic, but my understanding of my job as an artist is not to reinforce how awful everything is, but as a former professor of mine put it, “to make people feel like they aren’t alone.”
I realized that all of the creative people I was surrounded by were deeply upset by all of the devastating environmental news we’re hearing on a daily basis, but we were all expected to just get up, go to work, pay our bills and take our pills and act like everything was normal. I wanted to talk about how not normal it is.

Specifically finding humor in each of our character’s stories has been an essential part of making theatre on such a dark topic. I find that when you know how to use it, humor is one of the most powerful tools to get an audience to trust you. You make them laugh and you earn the moments where more challenging emotions arise.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Pay us.

I once heard at a union meeting a representative of Actor’s Equity referred to actors as “hobbyists”, as a defense for why Off-Broadway actors shouldn’t necessarily expect to be paid a livable wage.

Artists are not hobbyists. We are people of service. But we struggle to feel that way. To feel valued by our community.
I love that term you used, “thriving creative ecosystem”. Sounds dreamy. The systems and structures we currently live in, in the U.S. anyway, are not conducive to such an ecosystem. When even the unions that are meant to protect us downplay our value. That said, I think communally we can all invest more of our time, attention, and money when we can spare it, into supporting artists, as opposed to corporations.

I personally think that pushing for some sort of UBI (Universal Basic Income) program would be wise. But in the meantime, Patreon, buying directly from artists, supporting local theatre, live music, independent film, etc. Those are ways in which we as a community can foster such an ecosystem.

And please make a ruckus anytime they cut funding for arts programs.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The world feels pretty weird right now. I guess it’s probably always been weird. Maybe we’re just more aware of how much suffering exists currently thanks to the internet and social media. But being a person is hard. And I think artists remind people why we keep doing it. As the great Stella Adler put it, “Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.”

I guess my mission is to be a part of that.

As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoy using humor to provoke nuanced conversations about challenging topics. I think it’s a great way to access your audience. To access people. (Even the difficult ones. The people we may think we don’t agree with.) And I think we need to empower more creatives to do that work. To remind people they’re not alone.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.owmyuterus.com
• Instagram: @lauradelhauer

Image Credits

Matt Kallish, Hercules Sokolenko, Jack Merline, Janeva Turton, Devon Donis, Michael Minto