Laura Mannino

Laura Mannino grew up in White Plains, New York, a suburban city of malls and car dealerships that makes Glendale look like Paris in the 20’s. During a school production of TWELFTH NIGHT, Laura desperately wanted to play the Head Bitch In Charge Duchess whom everyone was in love with. She was cast as the funny maid who hangs out with drunks instead. This sparked Laura’s enthusiasm for writing modern-day fairytale TV comedies about fed-up women on the lowest rung of life’s ladder who pursue desire, fight injustice, forge unlikely friendships, and find their power along the way. 

Laura spent her weekends and summers in youth theatre programs writing and acting in cranky adolescent plays about her cranky adolescence. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and UCB, Laura performed stand-up, improv, and sketch at bars, former strip clubs, current yoga studios, and actual dungeons throughout New York City. 

After moving to Los Angeles, Laura wrote and starred in the short comedy TEN MINUTE DECADE. It screened at New Filmmakers NY and was a Hammer Museum's Open Projector Night Finalist. Laura’s half-hour pilot BOMB about navigating stand-up as a new mom is a PAGE Awards and Final Draft Big Break Semifinalist.

Laura’s rompy romantic half-hour comedy BODICE RIPPERS is Black List Recommended, an ATX Festival Pitch Competition Runner-Up, PAGE Awards Finalist, Stowe Story Labs Fellowship Winner, Roadmap Writers Top Tier Competition Winner, and a CineStory TV Comedy Scholarship Winner. Her half-hour political odd couple buddy comedy PARTY CRASHERS is a Writers Lab US Semifinalist. Laura's latest workplace half-hour comedy STORM THE CASTLE is a modern, female Robin Hood set in a unionizing Medieval Times-style restaurant. 

Credits include Consulting Producer on MTV's LOVELINE WITH AMBER ROSE and Quibi's SEXOLOGY WITH SHAN and Sketch Writer for Awestruck's ASSHOLE PARENTS. Laura also wrote for Ora TV, Disney Television Animation, Viacom Velocity, Here TV, and A&E Networks Digital. During the 2022 midterms, Laura joined THE HOMETOWN PROJECT to write voter engagement videos for celebrities in partnership with Michigan and Ohio Democrats.

Becoming a mom during the Trump years, Laura grew passionate about progressive politics. She founded DRAIN THE NRA, a grassroots gun reform group that successfully pressured over 30 companies to cut ties with the gun lobby. Laura also worked for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign as a field organizer in South LA Congressional districts. Laura lives in Highland Park with her rescued terrier, Ruffles, son, and husband, whom she met at NYU while hunting for bars that don't card.