Lisa D'Amour is a playwright, performer, and former Carnival Queen from

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. D'Amour is an alumna of

New Dramatists New Dramatists is an organization of playwrights founded in 1949 and located at 424 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Hell's Kitchen (Clinton) neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The members of New Dramatists parti ...

. Her play ''

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

'' was a finalist for the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

for Drama.

Biography

Education

D'Amour received a B.A. in English and Theater from

Millsaps College Millsaps College is a private liberal arts college in Jackson, Mississippi. It was founded in 1890 and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. History The college was founded in 1889–90 by a Confederate veteran, Major Reuben Webster M ...

in Jackson, Mississippi and her M.F.A. in playwriting from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

."Biography"
playscripts.com, accessed May 4, 2015

Personal life

D'Amour was born on October 17, 1969 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Currently, D'Amour lives as a

peripatetic Peripatetic may refer to: *Peripatetic school, a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece *Peripatetic axiom * Peripatetic minority, a mobile population moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade. *Peripatetic Jats There are several ...

with her husband, Brendan Connelly.

Work

D'Amour's plays include ''Hide Town'' produced by

Infernal Bridegroom Productions Infernal Bridegroom Productions (IBP) was a theater company located in Houston, Texas, formed in 1993 and dissolved in 2007. IBP garnered national attention when it was featured on the cover of American Theatre in September, 2002, for its original ...

, Houston (2006), ''Anna Bella Eema'' produced by New Georges, NYC (2003), Blue Theater/Physical Plant, Austin, TX (2001), and ''Ten Thousand Things'', Minneapolis. Winner, Best New Play, Austin Critics’ Table (2002). ''Stanley 2006'' was to be produced at HERE Arts Center in SoHo, NYC but was withdrawn due to an intellectual property dispute involving the character

Stanley Kowalski Stanley Kowalski is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' play ''A Streetcar Named Desire''. In the play Stanley lives in the working-class Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans with his wife, Stella ( DuBois), and is employed a ...

. ''The Cataract'' was produced Off-Broadway at the Women's Project, running from March 22, 2006 to April 15, 2006, directed by Katie Pearl. The ''CurtainUp'' reviewer wrote: "D'Amour's voice is a vibrant new addition to the American theatre, and Women's Project has assembled an exciting team in this brave production." It was originally produced by PlayLabs, Minneapolis, MN, in 2003 and then in Providence, Rhode Island by Perishable Theatre. Her play ''Nita & Zita'', written and directed by D'Amour, premiered at the State Palace Theater, New Orleans, in June 2002, and was produced Off-Broadway at the HERE Arts Center in 2003. The play won an

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

. The play relates the story of two sisters from Romania from the 1920s to the 1940s. In August 2008, she collaborated with the printmaker / installation artist SWOON on "Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea", a fleet of seven intricately handcrafted vessels that navigated the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

in August 2008. D'Amour made a performance to be presented by the crew in towns along the Hudson. Her play ''

'', was originally set to première on Broadway in September 2010, after the production at the

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on ...

, directed by

Austin Pendleton Austin Campbell Pendleton (born March 27, 1940) is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and instructor. He is known as a prolific character actor on the stage and screen who has appeared in films including ''Catch-22'' (1970); '' W ...

. Afterwards, the play opened Off-Broadway at

Playwrights Horizons Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Under the ...

in September 2012. On March 8, 2014, ''Cherokee'' premiered at the

Wilma Theater Wilma Theater may refer to: *Wilma Theater (Philadelphia) *Wilma Theatre (Missoula, Montana) {{dab ...

, it was the Woolly commissioned companion piece to ''Detroit,'' which was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, a 2013 Obie Award-winner (Best New American Play) and the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn prize. This heartfelt and comedic play was D’Amour's examination of what it means to lead an authentic life. ''

Airline Highway Airline Highway is a divided highway in the U.S. state of Louisiana, built in stages between 1925 and 1953 to bypass the older Jefferson Highway. It runs , carrying U.S. Highway 61 from New Orleans northwest to Baton Rouge and U.S. Highway 19 ...

'' premiered on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

in April 2015, marking her Broadway debut. The play was commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago, and opened there in December 2014.Ryzik, Melena
"Lisa D’Amour Juggles 'Airline Highway' and 'Milton,' a Tale of Five Towns"
''The New York Times'', March 19, 2015 ''Airline Highway'' received four 2015

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

nominations. The play received three 2015

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

nominations, including Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Julie White), Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (K. Todd Freeman) and Outstanding Play. This play examines a tight knit community of “outsiders” over the course of a single, legendary day. The Hummingbird Hotel is the figurative or literal home for a group of strippers, French Quarter service workers, hustlers, and poets who are bound together by their bad luck, bad decisions, and complete lack of pretense. In 2018, D'amour wrote
La Traviata
'' a short adaptation of Verdi's opera of the same title set in New Orleans, commissioned b
Playing on Air
The episode was released in Fall 2019 featuring

Debra Monk Debra Monk (born February 27, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and writer, best known for her performances on the Broadway stage. She earned her first Tony Award for the 1993 production of '' Redwood Curtain'' and won an Emmy Award for se ...

Johanna Day Johanna Day (born 1964) is an American actress. She was nominated for two Tony Awards for her performances in the 2000 play '' Proof'' and the 2016 production of the play ''Sweat''. Her other accolades include a Helen Hayes Award and an Obie Awa ...

Katie Finneran Katie Finneran (born January 22, 1971) is an American actress best known for her Tony Award-winning performances in the Broadway play ''Noises Off'' in 2002, and the musical '' Promises, Promises'' in 2010.

Zach Appelman Zach Appelman (born August 5, 1985) is an American film, television and theatre actor. He is known for portraying Luke Detweiler in the 2013 film '' Kill Your Darlings'', Joe Corbin in the television series '' Sleepy Hollow'', and Alton Finn in t ...

, and directed by Michael Wilson.

Collaboration

She is co-artistic director of PearlDamour, wit
Katie Pearl
making collaborative, often site-specific performances For 20 years, they have been an Obie-Award-winning collaborative team who are known for large-scale performances that mix theater and installation — such as ''How to Build a Forest'', an 8-hour performance in which they assemble and disassemble a simulated forest on an empty stage over 8 hours. Their work has been honored with the Lee Reynolds Award (2011), an

(2003) and two “Best Site Specific Performance” citations from the Gothamist for Bird Eye Blue Print (2007) and from the Minneapolis City Pages for LandMARK (2005). Their work is intensely

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

– crafted by extensive collaborations with artists of other fields. D'Amour teaches playwriting, collaboration, workshops on interdisciplinary performance and serves as a mentor to individual playwrights and groups looking to devise their own work. Her workshops incorporate examples from her own work and process as well as in-class exercises and writing games. She has taught in universities, writing centers, theaters and high schools. Places she has taught workshops are

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...

, and

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

, to name a few.

Awards

*2002: Best New Play from Austin Critics’ Table for ''Ten Thousand Things'' *2003 Obie Award for ''Nita & Zita'' *2008: A grant from the

Alpert Awards in the Arts The Alpert Award in the Arts was established in the 1994 by The Herb Alpert Foundation in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, Cali ...

in Theatre, a $75,000 mid-career grant *2008: 'MAP' fund award for ''Terrible Things'' with collaborator Katie Pearl *2009:

Creative Capital Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has commi ...

Award for ‘’How to Build a Forest'' *2011: Steinberg Playwright Award Steinberg Playwright Award
/ref> with

Melissa James Gibson Melissa James Gibson is a Canadian-born playwright based in New York. Life The child of former BC Liberal MLA Gordon Gibson and journalist Valerie Gibson, Melissa James Gibson grew up in North Vancouver. She graduated from Columbia University an ...

References

External links

*
New Dramatists

Women's Project

The Children's Theatre Company
*
Lisa D'Amour
at

Internet Off-Broadway Database The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway. The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundation ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Amour, Lisa American women dramatists and playwrights Living people Obie Award recipients Writers from New Orleans Actresses from New Orleans Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American actresses 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American women writers American stage actresses Millsaps College alumni Moody College of Communication alumni