Consultant to Opera House Arts since 2001
Founding Chair, Community Advisory Board 2002
Founding Board Member, 2003-2011
Chair of the Board, 2009-2011

At Opera House Arts’, we are extremely grateful that after an already full life helping people around the world, Lael focused the bright beam of her attention on Opera House Arts. Her passion for leadership development, especially among women, and for improving our local and global communities through change that is spiritual and emotional as well as political and economic, is unmatched. She has left us all with her great sense of responsibility for the world, her faith that we are each up to the task, and, in support of both, the inspiration of her own life. We are so lucky to have had her in our lives.





Opera House Arts’ Lael Stegall Memorial Fund

Including the Lael Stegall Theater Arts Award for Leadership Development

The Lael Stegall Memorial Fund at Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House (OHA) has been established to honor and make visible Lael’s amazing commitment to OHA and her passionate belief in the importance the arts play in the world at large, particularly in developing dynamic new leadership for change and in addressing at a spiritual and emotional level the issues she most cared about.

A primary focus of the Memorial Fund will be the Lael Stegall Theater Arts Award, to be awarded annually to a student in the performing arts. The award will be for a summer internship working directly with Opera House Arts in Stonington, Maine, and will include a stipend for travel to and from Maine, housing, and an honorarium (amount to be determined).

The internship will include direct involvement in all forms of performing arts, including live theater, dance, music and film. Internships will be awarded, based on the strength of the applications, in one of the following performing arts disciplines: stage management, theater technology and design, performance, costuming, or arts administration. We would like to see an emphasis placed on students who view the performing arts as a vehicle for community development and/or social change, as we feel that is where Lael's passions and OHA's mission and interests came together so nicely; with the goal of developing spirited new community leadership through the arts.

The award will be given to a deserving student in the performing arts with a strong emphasis on need. Because of Lael's international concerns and commitment to an understanding of global communities, we will attempt to reach out to the international theater arts community and pay special attention to developing leadership skills among young women.

The award will be announced in the spring of the academic year for internship positions that summer. The summer program book will feature a statement about Lael, a description of the award's selection process, and a biography of the awardee, including how this person fulfills the spirit of the award—keeping Lael’s spirit alive with all who attend future Opera House programs, and beyond.

Please honor Lael by donating to this endowed fund.
Please send a check made payable to OHA with Lael Stegall Memorial Fund written in the memo line of check to:
Opera House Arts
PO Box 56
Stonington ME 04681