LISA LEWIS
WRITER
"Competing drives and complicated ethics fuse in Lisa Lewis’s sexy and snarled SCHOOLED."
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WINNER of the New York International Fringe Festival Overall Excellence Award for Playwriting, SCHOOLED had a critically acclaimed sold-out run directed by James Kautz, and was extended as part of the Fringe Encore Series at Soho Playhouse. Published in The Best Plays from American Theater Festivals 2015, Applause Books. Finalist, ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition 2020 (Judge: Stephen Adly Guirgis).
It's about what happens outside the classroom
SCHOOLED is a fiercely funny and gripping new play about privilege, ambition, and the lengths we’ll go to succeed. Two film students vie for a competitive grant from their roguish professor in a taut threesome that tests their romantic relationship and their ethics. A biting drama with surprising humor, SCHOOLED is an examination of the lies we tell ourselves, and the truths we refuse to believe.
The cast of SCHOOLED: Quentin Maré, Lilli Stein, Stephen Friedrich. Photo by Darren Cox.
Peter Friedman, Phoebe Strole, James Kautz, Mara Davi
Directed by Oliver Butler at New Ohio Theatre
ABOUT LISA
Called "SEXY & SNARLED" by The New York Times, "WISED-UP & WHIP-SMART" by Time Out, and "WILDLY TALENTED" by HuffPost, Lisa's writing captures fast, funny, dangerous conversations between people blinded by assumptions.
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Her "childless cat ladies" dramedy THE ONE/FIFTH was an official selection of the 2024 SOHO PLAYHOUSE Lighthouse Series of new work and her gentrification comedy THE HOUSEWARMING was a finalist for the 2020/21 PLAYWRIGHTS REALM Fellowship. Additionally, in 2023/2024 she wrote and directed a documentary series following 16-time Grammy Award Winner Alicia Keys on her journey to Broadway.
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Her play SCHOOLED had an acclaimed sold-out run at the New York International Fringe Festival, receiving a Time Out New York Four Star Critics’ Pick review and praise in The New York Times. It won the Fringe Overall Excellence Award for Playwriting and was extended in the Fringe Encore Series at SOHO PLAYHOUSE and published in the Applause anthology, The Best Plays From American Theatre Festivals.
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Her pilots have been developed by Trudie Styler’s Maven Pictures, Liev Schreiber’s Illuminated Content, She's written and directed Broadway commercials with stars including Alicia Keys, Jessica Chastain, Lea Michele, Sting, Tom Hanks, Spike Lee, Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as part of her work as an Advertising Creative Director and was a long-time story analyst for New Line Cinema & Tribeca Films.
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A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her work has been developed & presented by The 24 Hour Plays (starring Homeland’s Amy Hargreaves), Naked Angels, Davenport Theatricals, The New Ohio Theatre, and New Helvetia Theatre’s Sacramento New Works Festival where she was an artist in residence.
To learn more, check out her resume here.
The Housewarming
Twenty-five years after the Brooklyn Crown Heights riots, newlyweds Alysha and Corey have bought a renovated duplex in the gentrifying neighborhood. When Alysha's college best friend Franny and her boyfriend Oscar come by to help them unpack, long-simmering resentments rise to the surface in a collision of race and class that threatens to destroy the bonds that connect them all.
Semi-Finalist
The Playwrights Realm 2020-21 Fellowship
THe
One/Fifth
When Jess asks her married twin brother if he'll provide the sperm for her and her wife's future baby, buried secrets and complex desires are unearthed, as both couples grapple with the question of when--or even if--they want to take the plunge into parenthood. THE ONE / FIFTH is a smart, achingly funny and deeply moving exploration of what happens when a messy modern arrangement puts everyone’s relationship under the microscope.
Official selection of the 2024 SOHO PLAYHOUSE Lighthouse Series of new work.
Finalist
ScreenCraft Stage Play Award,
Judge: Stephen Adly Guirgis, 2020
