Laura Long received her BA in Acting from UC Santa Cruz and her MA in Performance Theory from San José State University. Her Master's Thesis, The Meaning of the Body in Performance: Cross Cultural Casting and Racial Identity won the Best Thesis Award at SJSU in 2000. She is currently completing an MFA in Screenwriting with a secondary emphasis in Nonfiction writing at San Jose State. She wrote a contemporary feminist teen screenplay, Rock the Field, and is currently working on a film adaptation of the Cupid and Psyche myth.

Professor Long has taught acting, script analysis, and writing for the Theatre program since 1997, as well as directing main stage productions. Directing credits at SJSU include The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, the world premiere of Bye, Bye Bin Laden, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Angels in America, Of Mice and Men, Death of a Salesman, Yellow Face, and The Seagull.  She has also directed California Suite for Northside Theatre Company, The Price for Santa Clara Players, and Quilters and A Midsummer Night's Dream for Notre Dame High School.

As an actor, Professor Long studied classical acting at Shakespeare Santa Cruz with Tony Church, Paul Whitworth, and Julian Curry. She also trained at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England with Rosemary Harris, Ian Hogg, and Earle Gister, among others, and worked in a new play development program at Playwright's Horizons in New York.  A member of both Actor's Equity and SAG, she has performed on stage locally with Theatreworks, San José Stage Company and San José Repertory Company, as well as in film, industrial, and commercial work in California and New York.