2021 Atlanta 500: Arts, Sports, & Entertainment

Lara Smith moved to Atlanta in 2007 to become the development director of Dad’s Garage, moving to Actor’s Express for a couple of years in 2010 and then stepping into her current role in 2012. When the theater lost its home of 18 years, Smith helped secure a temporary space and led the purchase of a long-term home, which opened in 2015 in the Old Fourth Ward, through a nontraditional capital campaign. In 2015 she was one of the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40, and she was part of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Regional Leadership Institute class of 2017. President of the board of the Old Fourth Ward Business Association, she focuses on arts advocacy to ensure that the creative industry has the support it needs to flourish.