Lisa Goldman

Lisa Goldman is a British theatre director, dramaturg, writer and author.

Lisa Goldman (born November 1964) grew up in Walthamstow and Chingford, east London, where she attended local state schools.

She went on to gain a first class BA Hons in Drama and English from Loughborough University (1987), a postgraduate diploma in Directing from Drama Studio London (1988) and an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College, London (EU/UK scholarship 2013).

Lisa started writing, devising and directing plays at university.

Her final project was a physical ecofeminist piece called Mute inspired by Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin.

Her graduating project from drama school in 1988 was the British premiere of Heiner Müller’s poetic trilogy, Despoiled Shore, Medeamaterial and Landscape with Argonauts.

Lisa’s first professional theatre job was directing a national tour of Twelfth Night which opened at Pleasance 2 at the Edinburgh Festival in 1988.

Other early freelance work included assisting at Soho Theatre and Theatre Royal Stratford East.

At Theatre Royal she also worked as a researcher for Down Every Street and was a commissioned writer on Discover my Dream and The Good Society.

She was Youth Theatre Director 1988-9.

Elsewhere Lisa ran playwriting workshops in schools and directed young people's plays including for Travelling Light and Inner City Theatre Company.

She also wrote plays (see Writing).

In 1989 Lisa joined Workers' Theatre Movement (WTM) (president Ewan MacColl), and ran the company with its founder, actor Tam Dean Burn from 1989-91.

She wrote and directed short plays/raps around issues such as the Poll Tax, Irish self-determination, unemployment, International Women’s Day, May Day, the first Gulf War.

These were performed by the group at demos, on the street, in job centres or wherever a political intervention might be made.

WTM also ran the Internationale Cabaret in Camden.

For WTM Lisa directed a revival of Waiting for Lefty at the Old Red Lion in 1990 with Ed Bishop in the lead role.

She spent two months recording interviews with residents in East Berlin in 1991-2 about the experience of reunification, for her play Electra in Berlin.

She also directed the Bobby Sands Trilogy in 1991 at the Tramway, Glasgow, performed by Tam Dean Burn, despite calls for the ‘IRA play’ to be banned.

In 1991, during the first Gulf War, whilst running a non-stop picket outside the American Embassy, Tam and Lisa set up Artists against the War, working with a diverse group of artists to create art action on the streets against the war.

In 1994 she premiered another trilogy of Heiner Müller's work, Russian Gambit, The Duel and The Foundling.

In 1994 Lisa found a derelict room above what is now The Lion and Unicorn pub in Gaisford Street, Kentish Town and persuaded the new owner to let her create a theatre there.

She was soon joined by administrators Catherine Thornborrow and Emma Schad.

The Red Room Theatre Company launched in October 1995 with The Shorewatcher’s House by Judy Upton, going on to produce 12 new plays in its first year, including Sunspots and Stealing Souls by Upton, The Night Before Christmas by Anthony Neilson, Creamy by Leon London and Bacillus by Kay Adshead.

The Red Room went on to have residencies at The Finborough Theatre in 1997 and Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) in 1998-9.

The company also produced plays at the Bush Theatre and the Traverse Theatre, (Stitching and The Bogus Woman), Soho Theatre (Animal) and toured nationally and internationally.

As well as directing plays for the Red Room, Lisa also notably commissioned and produced Anthony Neilson’s controversial plays The Censor in 1997 (Time Out Live Award; Writers Guild Best Play) which the Red Room transferred from the Finborough to the Royal Court Theatre, Duke of York's Theatre and New Ambassadors Theatre and Stitching in 2003 (Time Out Live Award, the Stage best performer Selina Boyack, a Herald Angel award and runner up Evening Standard Award).

In 2001 they revived this idea after the bombing of Afghanistan.

The Red Room gained revenue funding in 2001 from Arts Council England after the success of The Bogus Woman by Kay Adshead.

The Bogus Woman had been commissioned through Seeing Red, a Festival of Dissent at BAC involving sixteen new short plays by writers including David Eldridge, Judy Upton, Rebecca Prichard, Parv Bancil, Dona Daly, Peter Barnes, Roney Fraser Munro and Conspiracy, a situationist club and precursor of scratch nights run by Tam Dean Burn.

Another of the commissioned plays, the controversial Made in England by Parv Bancil, also went on to have a successful tour.

In 2001, Lisa Goldman, Tam Dean Burn and Emma Schad set up Artists against the War when the US bombed Afghanistan after 9/11.

In 2003, on the eve of war in Iraq, Lisa curated Going Public at the Tricycle Theatre, a day-long event involving a diverse range of 30 theatre companies (including Royal Shakespeare Company and Cardboard Citizens) in a performed debate about theatre's role as a public form.

The last play Lisa directed for the Red Room was Hoxton Story in 2005 which she also wrote, based on the oral history archive she created through 40 hours of interviews with people living on the housing estates in the area.

Hoxton Story was an immersive site specific critique of gentrification, involving local people and professional actors, with scenes set in and around a council flat on Arden Estate, a fake art gallery, a funeral cortege, a Hoxton Square bar and Hoxton Hall.

She was Artistic Director and joint Chief Executive of Soho Theatre (2006–10) and The Red Room Theatre Company which she founded (1995-2006).

In 2006, Lisa took over as Artistic Director and joint Chief Executive of Soho Theatre Company.

In 2008 Lisa was included in the London Evening Standard’s ‘Influentials’ list as one of the 1000 most influential people in London.

Lisa’s book The No Rules Handbook for Writers was published by Oberon Books in April 2012.

It was cited by The Stage as one of their top 10 training books of 2012 and was an Amazon UK digital bestseller during November 2012.