Three-time Emmy® Award winner creating bold, deeply human work across theatre, film and television.
Three-time Emmy Award winner Cady McClain brings four decades of experience in storytelling, leadership, reinvention, and creative resilience to audiences around the country. Here with Maikiko James of Women in Film - Los Angeles at the WEHO Women in Hollywood Conference.
The Value of Developing Your Voice
I have spent more than forty years inside the creative process—as an actor, director, writer, producer, teacher, and artistic leader.
Along the way, I have learned that a creative life is not a straight line. It asks us to begin again, withstand uncertainty, remain curious, and keep making something meaningful even when the outcome is beyond our control.
My talks are for artists, leaders, students, and anyone standing at the edge of change. Through stories, humor, and honest conversation, I explore what it means to stay connected to your voice—and to the extraordinary universe inside you.
Cady is available as an interviewer, panel moderator, gala host, and facilitator of post-screening discussions.
City of West Hollywood Panel Discussion, led by Cady
PBS SoCal at South Coast Reperatory Theater
McClain has spoken at DRI Women in the Law in Miami, Hahn Loesser Law Firm, DigiFest Temecula, and Johnson County Community College in Kansas, the National Student Leadership Conference at UCLA, the USC School of Social Work, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of San Diego, NYU, Webster University, Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Film and Animation, Roadtrip Nation, Typer Junior College in Texas, and Los Angeles City College.
An experienced moderator and interviewer, McClain has created and led conversations at Pepperdine University, Women in Film Los Angeles, the WEHO Women and Leadership Conference, the Catalina, Heartland, Artemis, DTLA, Mystic, Oxford, and QFest Houston film festivals, and Kids in the Spotlight Industry Night. Her subjects have ranged from diversity, mentorship, crowdfunding, and independent film distribution to creative process, female leadership, and the power of storytelling to foster empathy and social change.
Whether delivering a keynote, leading a workshop, or moderating a panel, McClain creates thoughtful, deeply human conversations that encourage audiences to reconnect with their own voices, imagination, and capacity for meaningful change.
Cady with Directors Carla Garapedian, Bethany Rooney, Lizzie Borden, and Finola Hughes at a screening of Seeing is Believing at Pepperdine University.
Photo by Amanda Edwards, Getty Images
Webster University
OPTIONS FOR WORKSHOPS
The Long Burn - Creativity, Reinvention, and the Courage to Keep Going
What does it take to sustain a meaningful creative life through success, disappointment, loss, and change? Drawing on her extraordinary four-decade career, Cady explores how we can continue becoming without abandoning who we have already been.
Best for women’s conferences, professional associations, universities, arts organizations, and leadership events.
Formats: 30–60-minute keynote; keynote with Q&A
Dreaming Into Art
Moving Through Creative Blocks to Find the Story Within
An imaginative, participatory workshop that helps artists and non-artists quiet the internal critic, reconnect with intuition, and discover the material asking to be expressed. Best for retreats, universities, creative teams, writers, artists, educators, and professional-development programs.
Formats: 90 minutes; half day; full day
The Empathy Machine - What Storytelling Can Teach Us About Leadership
Actors and directors learn to listen beneath language, create trust, recognize human behavior, and help people do their most courageous work. Cady translates those lessons into a fresh and deeply human approach to leadership.
Best for corporations, law firms, nonprofits, women’s leadership programs, and creative organizations.
Formats: Keynote; moderated conversation; interactive workshop. In person or on Zoom.
Open for discussion and collaboration on other topics and events!
Women in Film - Los Angeles
Accepting her second of three Emmy Awards