Lisa D’Amour

A.R.T.: Debut. Lisa D’Amour is a playwright, educator and interdisciplinary collaborator from New Orleans, LA. She grew up in a world of ritual, activism, group spectacle and care, all of which continues to thrive in her work. Her theater company PearlDamour makes interdisciplinary, often site-specific works which range from the intimate to large scale. Recent work includes MILTON, a performance and community engagement experiment rooted in 5 U.S. towns named Milton, and How to Build a Forest, an 8-hour performance installation created with visual artist Shawn Hall. Lisa’s plays have been produced in many theaters across the country, including Manhattan Theater Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater on Broadway, Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago), Children’s Theater Company (Minneapolis), Woolly Mammoth Theater (Washington D.C.), Southern Rep Theater and ArtSpot Productions (both in New Orleans). Lisa’s play Detroit was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn prize. She is the recipient of the 2008 Alpert Award for the Arts in theater, the 2011 Steinberg Playwright Award, and a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. She is a former Jerome Fellow, a Core Alum of the Playwrights’ Center, and an alumna of New Dramatists. She serves on the Board of the Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival and on the collaborative leadership team of the Black and Blue Story Project.