Lisa Soland

Lisa Soland is an actor, playwright, and producer whose work spans theatre, film, television, and new play development. A former multi-sport high school athlete (track, volleyball, basketball), she originally received athletic scholarship offers before a transformative experience performing as “Dulcie” in The Boy Friend inspired her to pursue theatre.

She earned a BFA in Acting from Florida State University and began her professional career as an apprentice at the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre, where she received her Actors’ Equity Association card. She later moved to Los Angeles, where her acting career expanded into writing, leading her to develop a lifelong focus on new play creation and collaboration.

Lisa founded and led The All Original Playwright Workshop in Los Angeles, which she directed for ten years, supporting the development of new work and emerging playwrights. She later relocated to East Tennessee with her husband, where she continues to write and produce plays. Her work is shaped by her military family background, rural upbringing, and personal experiences, including her father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Acting Career

Lisa is a member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and has worked in film and television (a member of SAG & AFTRA, credits available on IMDb). She currently performs in her solo biographical play about legendary University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt.

Her favorite roles include Pirate Jenny in Three Penny Opera, Zelda Fitgerald in Luce Women, Bonnie in Anything Goes, Grace in her own play Cabo San Lucas, and Pat in Pat: The Play.

Playwriting Career

Soland headed up the MFA playwriting program at FSU and taught acting and playwriting at Maryville College. She is a prolific playwright with over 50 published works internationally. Her plays have been published in countless “best of” anthologies and produced by major theatrical publishers. These include:

• Concord Theatricals (Samuel French)

• Smith & Kraus

• Applause Books

• Dramatic Publishing

• All Original Play Publishing

Selected Full-Length Works

• Waiting

• Dr. Biscotti & the Human Condition

• Inspired: A Drama With Music

• Truth Be Told

• The Name Game

• The Man in the Gray Suit & Other Short Plays

• The Sniper’s Nest (based on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and Judyth Vary Baker; premiered at Maryville College and produced in Austin, TX, with readings in Florida and Germany)

• The Hand on the Plough (developed with John Patrick Shanley at Tennessee Repertory Theatre)

Selected Short Plays & Anthology Publications

• Thread Count (Best American Short Plays 2010–2011)

• Spatial Disorientation (Best American Short Plays 2012–2013)

• The Corporate Ladder (Best Ten-Minute Plays 2013)

• The Ladder in the Room (Best American Short Plays 2015–2016)

• Additional works include: The Other Shoe, Different, Knots, The Same Thing, Come to the Garden, An Earthquake, Red Roses, and others.

Biographical Solo Works

Lisa is widely recognized for her biographical solo performance work:

Sergeant York: The Play (2018)

A one-man show starring Greg Helton as WWI hero Alvin C. York. The production premiered in Knoxville and toured extensively, including York’s homeplace in Pall Mall, Tennessee, Cumberland County Playhouse, Park Avenue Armory, and 13th Street Repertory Theatre in New York City. The play chronicles York’s life from childhood through military service in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and his post-war legacy in education and public service.

PAT (2025)

A one-woman play in which Soland portrays legendary University of Tennessee Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt. The work explores Summitt’s life from her rural Tennessee upbringing through her historic coaching career, leadership legacy, and battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The production premiered in October 2025 at the Old City Performing Arts Center in Knoxville following years of research and developmental readings.

Producing, Directing & Theatre Companies

Lisa has produced and directed more than 120 productions and staged readings, many of them original works.

She founded several theatre organizations, including:

• Rose’s Name Game Productions (1993), later All Original Playwright Theatre

• The Fellowship Theatre (North Hollywood)

• Theatre Encino (California)

• The All Original Playwright Workshop (Los Angeles, Knoxville, and online)

Through these platforms, she has supported new play development across the United States for decades.

LUCE WOMEN: A Formative Chapter

While I was an apprentice at the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre, I was cast as Zelda in a production called Luce Women, written by Broadway playwright William Luce. The production was directed by Charles Nelson Reilly, and it became one of the most formative experiences of my early acting career.

For the first time, both the director and the playwright were actively present throughout rehearsals. Bill Luce would sit in the house alongside Charles Nelson Reilly, watching the work unfold. As he observed, he would rethink and rewrite sections of the play in real time. Charles would respond instantly, shaping the staging as the text evolved.

This created a living process—fluid, demanding, and immediate. As actors, we had to adapt quickly, relearning lines and adjusting to changes as they came. It required flexibility, focus, and trust in the moment.

Charles was remarkably inventive and deeply supportive. He had a profound respect for playwrights and had directed several of Bill Luce’s one-person works in New York City. His approach made the room feel both disciplined and open—structured yet constantly in motion.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand it, but this experience was laying groundwork in me that would shape everything that followed. I loved that period deeply. It stayed with me—etched into memory as a defining artistic environment.

Later, after moving to Los Angeles, I went through a period of creative disconnection and depression. As an artist, I found that work rarely replicated the immediacy and collaborative intensity of those early experiences. Eventually, I realized something important: if I wanted to access that level of creative authorship again, I would need to become the playwright myself.

And eventually, I did.

Soland’s work spans romantic comedies, dramas, and historical/biographical pieces, as well as ten-minute plays, which are ideal for competition. Themes often include faith, resilience, human relationships, history, patriotism, and personal purpose. Her solo biographical plays emphasize authentic research, interviews with descendants/family, and immersive performance. She has built a career blending commercial publication success, regional theater impact (primarily in Tennessee), self-production, and mentorship.