Biography
Lisa D'Amour is a playwright and interdisciplinary artist. With Katie Pearl, she is co-artistic director of PearlDamour, a company that makes collaborative, often site-specific performances. PearlDamour's work has been presented at PS122, HERE Arts Center and the Walker Arts Center and The Kitchen, among others. They received an OBIE award in 2003 for Nita & Zita, a collaboration with Katie Randels/Artspot Productions. Ms. D'Amour's plays have been produced by theaters across the country, including The Women's Project, Clubbed Thumb, Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf, New Georges, Salvage Vanguard Theater and Children's Theater Company. Her latest play, Detroit, premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2010, directed by Austin Pendleton. Detroit was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn prize. She has received commissions from Playwrights' Horizons, Steppenwolf, The Guthrie and, most recently, a Sloan Commission from Manhattan Theater Club. In 2008, Ms. D'Amour was awarded the Alpert Award for the Arts in theater and 2011, she received the Steinberg Playwright Award. As a playwright, she has received fellowships from the Jerome and McKnight Foundations through the Playwrights' Center, an independent artist commission from NYSCA (for Stanley 2006, created with her brother Todd D'Amour) and an NEA / TCG Playwrights' Residency (to create HIDE TOWN with Infernal Bridegroom Productions in Houston). With PearlDamour, she has received project funding from the MAP Fund and Creative Capital. She received her M.F.A. in playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin and her B.A. in English and Theater from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. She is a New Dramatists alumni. She lives with her husband, composer Brendan Connelly, in Brooklyn and New Orleans.
