By ANNA O'DONOGHUE

If you're a theater person, you've probably heard of Laura Pels. Maybe you've seen her name on a ticket stub—the Roundabout's theater on 46th Street is named for her—or maybe you've been involved in one of the several hundred productions or projects that have received grants or endowments from one of her two (yes, two) foundations. If you go to Juilliard, you might have heard about the annual prize she gives to a graduating drama student—the largest one available—or maybe you know someone at N.Y.U. who got one; she gives an award there, too. Maybe you sit on a board with her—she's on just about all of them—or you've seen a performance that she produced. And not just in New York, either; you might have seen a show at the Paris theater she acquired in 1999; under her reign, the Théâtre de l'Atelier has housed nearly a dozen plays by a battery of international playwrights, from Harold Pinter to Woody Allen.

Laura Pels in her office in Paris at Théâtre de l’Atelier.

Laura Pels has made quite a name for herself—and all after a 30-year career as a wife and mother ended in divorce. But since 1992, when she started her first foundation, Ms. Pels has certainly been making up for lost time. The theater has always been where her heart is; as a child in France, she discovered the great French playwrights—Molière, Racine, Genet—and realized immediately that plays were "how I got my feelings fed." She discovered that she had a knack for structure, an eye for good writing—a theatrical instinct. A brief stint as a mime in a French company gave her a taste of performing. "I had this very strong accent so no one would want me to speak," she admits. "Someone said, why not be a mime? I thought, O.K.!" But Ms. Pels quickly determined that the actor's life was not for her. "Life happened; I managed to fall in love and have babies. And you certainly can't make a living as a mime. Besides, I don't have the courage to face the constant rejection, or that black hole that faces you when you walk out onstage every night."

When Ms. Pels came back to the theater after her marriage, this time on the other side of the footlights, her philanthropic and producing roles gave her an opportunity to learn—as she says, "soak"—from of all types of theater artists. "I've been lucky enough to make so many wonderful, talented friends who have taught me tremendously, just through osmosis." Ms. Pels credits much of her success to luck. "I had this money, and I knew I understood theater ... and I knew I loved it more than anything else," she says. "You have to have an enormous passion for it, enormous—or you shouldn't do it. So I thought, 'that's what I will do now.' And I have been so lucky. I just hope that I have been able to use my luck to do some good. I don't know what they'll put on my tombstone, but hopefully, 'Thank you for trying.' Something like that."

But luck is not Ms. Pels's only gift. There is her tireless energy and work ethic (managing two foundations straddling two continents is no easy task), her rare and innate artist's eye (in a 1995 speech, John Robin Baitz credited her with fixing the first act of his play), and another key attribute: that ability to soak. "All these wonderful people don't mind talking to me, because they know I'll listen," she says. "I think perhaps most people don't." Theater, the age-old medium of the spoken word, is all about the art of listening, so it is no wonder that it is there Ms. Pels feels most at home and most alive. "Theater has always been there, doing the same thing for people. You get up off your couch, turn off your television, and you sit in a room in the dark with other people. All of you together. Participating, interacting. Theater requires something of you, that commitment and that engagement. Going to the theater is an act of faith."

Anna O'Donoghue is a fourth-year drama student.