Lisa Stathoplos is an actor, voice artist and special education teacher/behavior specialist. She has been acting on stage, in film and video for forty years and teaching for over twenty. She recently appeared in Pinkplot Productions’ collaboration with The Hill Arts of Portland, Maine in the world premiere of Roland Tec’s What We Get To Keep, playing Helen, as well as another premiere in UMaine/Farmington’s new workshop world premiere production of Jayne Decker’s Maine Literary Drama Award winning, All The Good They Gave Us, playing Lydia.
Highlights of Lisa’s work on stage includes Violet Weston in Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County at Good Theater earning her the 2011 Portland PEER Award for Best Performance. She was a Spotlight Award nominee for creating the role of Emily in Mike Kimball’s The Secret of Comedy for NY Theater Company, Portsmouth, N.H. She won critical acclaim playing Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class at Good Theater.
At Portland Stage, she premiered the role of Marie in Monica Wood’s Papermaker and played Sharon in Jen Silverman’s The Roommate. She is a founding member of Mad Horse Theatre Company, Portland. She performed with Eve Ensler in her Vagina Monologues at Merrill Auditorium, Portland. Film work includes Ellie Lee’s Dog Days, Winner, Best Short 2000 Hamptons and Florida Film Festivals, Family Trees by Lars Trodson, Berlin Film Festival and New York Film Festival, Louis Frederick’s Drink Me and her first speaking role on film with a dog returned from the dead in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.
Voice work with PocketUniverse Productions for Audible.com includes voicing Nina Locke in Joe Hill’s multiple Audie Award winning Locke and Key, Diana Fowley in The X-Files with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson/2018 multiple AUDIE Award nominee, The Starling Project by Jefferey Deavers playing opposite Alfred Molina/2016 AUDIE Award, Best Original Work, The Vault of Horror from EC Comics/Winner Best AudioDrama, 2020 Independent Book Awards. She played Captain Frey in Homefront: Expeditionary Force with Kate Mulgrew and Zachary Quinto and won a 2019 Earphones Award/Audiofile Magazine for her narration of Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women.
Lisa first book, Make Me, a memoir of her first thirty five years, was praised by Publisher’s Weekly/BookLife: “These vignettes offer flashes of insight….blending her exuberant commentary with finely etched detail…” Lisa’s second book, Chimera/A Shapeshifter’s Journey, telling stories of the second half of her life and her personal and professional experience with mental illness and addiction is due out later this year.
Lisa is a certified Special Education teacher for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. She completed her post-graduate education through UMaine Farmington. She co-designed a highly successful proactive program, MANTA, at York High School dedicated as a “safe place” to help students with emotional and behavioral disabilities build skills and resiliency and to solve problems to help them become more successful. She has worked as a special education high school teacher and case manager for over twenty years. She taught acting and improvisation skills to At-Risk kids for the Portland Boys and Girls Clubs of America and numerous special purpose after-school programs.
Also trained in Transformative Mediation, Lisa continued her conflict resolution training in the graduate program at Colorado State University in Conflict Resolution, Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution.
Lisa is trained as a Community Facilitator in Restorative Justice with the Restorative Justice Project of Belfast, Maine and has completed additional training with RJP/Belfast in the nationwide Open Table project, enjoying a year-long tenure with five other community members to welcome a former inmate returning to community after twenty two years in the criminal justice system.
Lisa brought Dr. Ross Greene to York High School where he spent a year leading staff in his CPS (Collaborative and Proactive Solutions) Model. Greene’s highly regarded model has international acclaim and places emphasis on the idea that “kids do well if they can and, if they are not doing well, something is getting in their way.” (Greene, R., Lost At School: (Greene, R., Lost At School: Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them, 2008) Lisa married Greene’s practices with her own version of “the voodoo she do ’ and her firm belief in unconditional positive regard. These practices have been her “road in” and her guide in helping kids find their way.