Lisa Dillman

Lisa Dillman

Lisa Dillman's plays include GROUND, THE WALLS, AMERICAN WEE-PIE, ROCK SHORE, NO SUCH THING, SIX POSTCARDS, FLUNG, HALF OF PLENTY, and SHADY MEADOWS. Her work has been produced by Steppenwolf Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, American Theatre Company, Rogue Machine, Seattle Public Theatre, SPF-NYC, and many other companies. She has been commissioned by the Goodman Theatre (AMERICAN WEE...
Lisa Dillman's plays include GROUND, THE WALLS, AMERICAN WEE-PIE, ROCK SHORE, NO SUCH THING, SIX POSTCARDS, FLUNG, HALF OF PLENTY, and SHADY MEADOWS. Her work has been produced by Steppenwolf Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, American Theatre Company, Rogue Machine, Seattle Public Theatre, SPF-NYC, and many other companies. She has been commissioned by the Goodman Theatre (AMERICAN WEE-PIE), Steppenwolf (FLUNG and ROCK SHORE), Northlight Theatre (GROUND), the Chicago Humanities Festival (SHADY MEADOWS), Canamac Productions (JUST CAUSE), and Rivendell Theatre Ensemble (THE WALLS and CHIAROSCURO), where she is a longtime company member and where three of her plays have premiered, as well as by Baltimore Centerstage, where her "Story of a House" was included in the MY AMERICA video series, directed by Hal Hartley. Dillman has also developed work at the National Playwrights Conference of the O'Neill Theater Center, two stints at Philadelphia's PlayPenn Conference, The Women Playwrights Festival at Hedgebrook/ACT Theatre, and the National New Play Network. She was a member of the Goodman Theatre's inaugural Playwrights Unit and Steppenwolf Theatre Company's New Plays Lab. Her work is published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals, Playscripts Inc., Dramatic Publishing Company, Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, and New Issues Press. She is a past recipient of the Sprenger-Lang New History Play Prize, the Morton R. Sarrett National Playwright Award, and the Julie Harris–Beverly Hills Theatre Guild's Nesburn Prize as well as a two-time recipient of the Illinois Arts Council's Artist Fellowship in Playwriting/Screenwriting and a three-time Joseph Jefferson Award nominee for Best New Work. Lisa currently serves as literary director at Chicago's Rivendell Theatre Ensemble. She cowrote JUST CAUSE:THE EXPERIENCE for Canamac Productions, and is currently at work on a new large-scale project focused on the American loneliness epidemic. AMERICAN WEE-PIE will be published in 2024 by Dramatic Publishing Company.

Plays

  • NO SUCH THING
    A middle-aged married woman takes an anonymous lover and begins an affair that blends sex and storytelling. Fact and fiction collide. No Such Thing examines the question of what makes a story consequences of finding—and following—one's bliss.
  • SIX POSTCARDS
    Ethan has a house, a fiancée, and a steady job driving a forklift. He's also been sober for
    six months. But the church choir can't compare with his glory days fronting a band
    with his sister Mona. When Mona arrives in their small Michigan hometown to commemorate the
    anniversary of their mother's suicide, Ethan's tenuous grasp on stability is shaken by
    her promises...
    Ethan has a house, a fiancée, and a steady job driving a forklift. He's also been sober for
    six months. But the church choir can't compare with his glory days fronting a band
    with his sister Mona. When Mona arrives in their small Michigan hometown to commemorate the
    anniversary of their mother's suicide, Ethan's tenuous grasp on stability is shaken by
    her promises of a lucrative recording deal and one more magic night in Austin. Six Postcards is an
    exploration of familial bonds, the lure of fame, and the haunting power of memory.
  • GROUND
    When Zell Preston inherits her father's struggling pecan farm and moves back to her childhood home in Fronteras, New Mexico, she finds that the once tight-knit border community has changed radically. The government has cracked down on the undocumented immigrant population, dividing families and pitting neighbor against neighbor. Chuy Gallegos, foreman at the Preston farm for 30 years, wants the piece of...
    When Zell Preston inherits her father's struggling pecan farm and moves back to her childhood home in Fronteras, New Mexico, she finds that the once tight-knit border community has changed radically. The government has cracked down on the undocumented immigrant population, dividing families and pitting neighbor against neighbor. Chuy Gallegos, foreman at the Preston farm for 30 years, wants the piece of land he says Zell's father promised him long ago. Ines Sandoval and her sister Angie Zelaya lobby for the return of their recently deported aunt. Angie's husband Carl Zelaya defends to his community and family his choice to work for the Border Patrol. And Cooper Daniels, industrial pecan grower and head of a civilian border surveillance group, forges ahead with a volunteer-built fence. These forces collide in Ground, which examines the human costs of immigration policies, and the strength of personal beliefs about family, home, and civil rights in the face of a shifting political and social landscape. Available from Samuel French at https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/5208/ground
  • THE WALLS
    A scholarly young woman confronts her mother's mental illness and tragic death, and the possible consequences of her own complicated inheritance in this time-bending play about the elusive nature of madness.
  • AMERICAN WEE-PIE
    A depressed middle-aged textbook editor returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral and unexpectedly discovers a path to reinvention along the way. American Wee-Pie is a comedy about economic recession, career second acts, and the sometimes life-changing power of a small, good thing.


  • HALF OF PLENTY
    When Holly and Marty Tindall become caregivers for Marty's ailing father, they hope to forge a familial utopia in the midst of suburban chaos. Instead a strange triangle evolves, and their home comes to serve as both a prison and a fortress against multiple threats from the outside world. HALF OF PLENTY is a pitch black comedy about isolation, the impact of fear on daily choices, and the high stakes of time passing by.
  • ROCK SHORE
    The year is 1913. At Rock Shore Sanatorium for the Tubercular, the patients are confined to an isolated treatment facility deep in the Adirondack Mountains. Far from home and facing dismal long-term prospects, a disparate group of survivors manages to find independence, love, and hope in a world hemmed in by the twin specters of illness and death.
  • FLUNG
    The four adult Cotter siblings have gathered at the family summer cottage on Lake Michigan two years after their father's death to scatter his ashes from atop his favorite sand dune. Meryl is on the verge of a divorce from Jim. Win is nine months pregnant. Matthew is about to lose custody of his kids. And their 20-year-old half-sister Jade just wants to get married to her boyfriend Devon--and quick. During...
    The four adult Cotter siblings have gathered at the family summer cottage on Lake Michigan two years after their father's death to scatter his ashes from atop his favorite sand dune. Meryl is on the verge of a divorce from Jim. Win is nine months pregnant. Matthew is about to lose custody of his kids. And their 20-year-old half-sister Jade just wants to get married to her boyfriend Devon--and quick. During a wet, mosquito-ridden Fourth of July weekend at a childhood getaway that has very divergent implications for each of them, these estranged siblings, along with their assorted spouses and companions, attempt to cobble together the elusive and contradictory memories of growing up with (and without) their difficult patriarch.