Lisa Rothe was recently nominated for SDC's Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction for Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata. The play was also nominated for a Drama Desk award for Best Solo Performance by actor Joel de la Fuente (and produced by Epic Theatre Ensemble in NYC).  The play has had productions at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the SoloNova Festival in NYC, Playmakers Repertory Theatre in North Carolina and soon at ACT in Seattle.

Some favorite recent work: Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl for People’s Light & Theatre Company (with Rinde Eckert & Ellen McLaughlin), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for Chautauqua Theater Company and Penelope by Ellen McLaughlin & Sarah Kirkland Snider for Playmakers Repertory Theatre.

Along with composer Kim Sherman and librettist Margaret Vandenburg, Lisa has been developing a new opera about Ada Byron (Ada) which was presented last spring as a part of the Center for Contemporary Opera’s Development Series. For more info about the development of the piece, please click here. 

 Lisa has workshopped, developed and directed over one hundred new plays and musicals, working with many award winning writers. For the last four years, she has also been the Director of Offsite Programs and Partnerships, at the Lark Play Development Center in NYC, where she deals with providing expanded opportunities for playwrights, aimed at advancing new work to production nationally and globally.

Lisa has taught and directed at many prestigious theatre programs around the country including NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, the Chautauqua Conservatory, the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA) at Primary Stages and many others. She is a graduate of NYU’s Graduate Acting Program and Director’s Lab, as well as a Drama League alum, Fox Fellow, member of the Women’s Project Director’s Lab and is currently serving on the board of the League of Professional Theatre Women as the Vice President of Membership.

One of her favorite organizations is Dr. Jane Aronson’s World Wide Orphan Foundation (WWO), where she spent a couple of summers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia creating theatre with children and teens and for local communities. Please support if you can!