Shira Piven is a director and actress of theater, film, and TV. Between 1999 and 2003, she was founder and artistic director of the Water Theatre Company and has directed over 20 stage productions in New York, Chicago, and LA. She was also director and a founding member of burn Manhattan spontaneous theatre, a groundbreaking group performing entirely improvised physical theatre throughout New York City. In Los Angeles Shira developed and directed the plays Little and All Cake No File at the Actors Gang Theatre and Fully Loaded at UCB Theatre. She directed Ed Asner in the play Number of People at the Pasadena Playhouse, and at Hartford Stage. She was invited by Nora Ephron to workshop and develop the book Love, Loss, and What I Wore for the stage, which later went on to an Off- Broadway run. She wrote and directed several programs of original short plays at the Ontological-Hysteric theatre in New York and also in LA, and directed writer/performer Cindy Caponera in Ms. Caponera's A Debutante's Ball, both in New York at LaMama and in Chicago at Victory Gardens Theatre.