Cady McClain is an award-winning actor, director, producer, writer and teacher whose creative life is deeply rooted in the theatre. As Executive Director and Co-Artistic Director of Axial Theatre, she develops and produces bold, deeply human work by emerging and established playwrights. She is one of the creators of Axial’s SAFEHOUSE reading series and has directed, produced and developed plays, staged readings and workshops in New York and Los Angeles. She is also a member of the Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit.

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Onstage, McClain’s recent roles include "Joan Plowright" in Austin Pendleton’s ORSON'S SHADOW, directed by Pendleton and David Schweizer at Theatre for the New City; the title role in SHIRLEY VALENTINE, directed by Roy Steinberg at Cape May Stage; "Lydia Mazurak" in BENEATH THE ICE OF THE VISTULA, directed by Eduard Tolokonnikov at the West End Theater; and "Kelly" in Jake Shore’s THE SLIDE IS THE NEGATIVE, directed by Paul Smithyman at The Chain Theatre. Her additional theatre credits include David Ives’ THE RED ADDRESS, directed by Pam Berlin at Second Stage Theater, Neil Simon's BAREFOOT IN THE PARK at the Westbury Music Fair, and Shakespeare’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at Lincoln Center Theater.

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According to Deadline, McClain is also a history-making three-time Emmy® Award-winning actress. She is the only woman to recieve Daytime Emmys for three distinct roles on three different series: "Dixie Cooney" on All My Children, "Rosanna Cabot" on As the World Turns, and "Jennifer Horton Deveraux" on Days of Our Lives.

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She currently appears as "Pamela Curtis" on the groundbreaking CBS series Beyond the Gates, also available on BET and Paramount+. The series was named one of the best television shows of 2025 by Entertainment Weekly. Her television work also includes Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a decades-spanning body of work that has made her one of daytime television’s most enduring and respected performers.

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A two-time Emmy®-nominated director, McClain produced and directed the award-winning documentary Seeing Is Believing: Women Direct. Described by BroadwayWorld as “a revelatory documentary,” the film received the Jury Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival and the Audience Award at the SOHO Film Festival. It later aired on PBS stations and is now distributed to universities, libraries and educational institutions nationwide by Collective Eye.  Her other short films have won awards at the Santa Fe Film Festival, the Mystic Film Festival, the Sedona Film Festival, and the Philadelphia Film Festival, to name a few.

She is a proud recipient of the Matrix Award by Women in Communications.

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As a Master Teacher at Michael Howard Studios, McClain helps actors develop a personal process grounded in imagination, sensory work, script analysis and character development. Her teaching also addresses the practical realities of an artistic life: how to protect the work, understand the business and continue creating through uncertainty and change. She has spoken and taught at universities, film festivals, leadership programs and professional conferences across the country on creativity, women and leadership, diversity in filmmaking and the courage required to bring an idea into the world.

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Her memoir, Murdering My Youth, is a candid, darkly funny exploration of childhood, survival, show business and the long journey toward reclaiming one’s own story. It has received more than 100 five-star Amazon reviews and has been featured by Entertainment Tonight and TV Guide Magazine.

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McClain’s wider creative life includes poetry, music, essays, visual art and collage.

 

Whether acting, directing, writing, teaching or developing a new work for the stage, she is drawn to the moment when a person can no longer hide from the truth—and to the transformation that may follow.