For the past 25 years, Lisa has created interdisciplinary work with her close collaborator Katie Pearl under the company name PearlDamour. She has also created collaborative works with SWOON, ArtSpot Productions, her brother Todd d’Amour and other artists. A sampling of these projects below, with more found on the PearlDamour website.
OCEAN FILIBUSTER
PearlDamour
Premiered 2022, A.R.T. Theater, currently touring.
A genre-crashing music theater performance that uses the form of a government filibuster to explore the intimate, critical relationship between humans and the ocean. Featuring Jenn Kidwell and a 6 person ocean choir. Music by Sxip Shirey. More info here.
MILTON
PearlDamour
Premiered 2013, Woman’s Center, Milton, NC, with subsequent touring.
A performance and community engagement experiment rooted in 5 towns name Milton in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Oregon and Massachusetts. PearlDamour visited this 5 towns for 3 years and made a play about them. Created with set designer Jim Findlay and composer Brendan Connelly. More about this project here. Purchase a book about the project at 53rd State Press.
LOST IN THE MEADOW
PearlDamour
Premiered 2014 at Longwood Botanical Gardens
200 audience members sit on a hillside, wearing headphones, gazing out over a 40-acre meadow. Characters begin to appear on the path. The audience can hear each one up close. Each character is making a pilgrimage through a ravaged landscape, towards a message that will tell them what to do next. As they move, an enormous megaphone is constructed behind them and plugged into the earth. Created with Set Designer Mimi Lien and Sound Designers Brendan Connelly and Nick Kourtides. More about this project here.
HOW TO BUILD A FOREST
PearlDamour
Premiered 2011, Kitchen Theater, NYC with subsequent touring.
Part visual art installation and part theater performance, How to Build a Forest unfolds over 8 hours. Beginning on an empty stage each performance day, the forest comes together in ways that range from surprisingly intimate to large-scale and spectacular; in the premiere production it ultimately filled the Kitchen’s black box from wall to wall and floor to ceiling (30’x 40’ x 22’). Created with visual artist Shawn Hall. More information here.
STANLEY (2006)
Created with Todd d’Amour
Premiered 2006, HERE Arts Center, NYC
This multimedia solo performance transports an aching Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire to the year 2006, where he wanders the streets of America searching for Blanche Dubois. Hijacking imagery from the classic Tennessee Williams play and portions of the physical score from Elia Kazan’s legendary film, the piece reveals a man who is part Stanley, part Brando, part living metaphor and part raw appetite. Stanley 2006 incorporates live feed video and rapid-fire collage to create a visceral close-up of a haunted man aching to get what he wants.
Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea
Presented in ports along the Hudson River, Summer, 2008.
A collaboration with SWOON. Part installation, part floating community, part play. 7 sculptural “junk boats” were pulled together each evening to form the stage for a play about a roving band outsiders seeking solace and community amidst environmental catastrophe. With music by darkdarkdark.
Landmark - 24 Hours @ the Stonearch Bridge
Premiered Summer 2005 in Minneapolis.
A 24-hour system of performances on and around the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River celebrating the river, the land, the industry and myths of this sacred (and colonized) spot.
Flight
Premiered 2008, New Orleans, with ArtSpot Productions and Mondo Bizarro.
An ensemble-generated performance extravaganza featuring performer-activated machines, film projection, song and live theatre. FLIGHT explored humankind’s enduring dream of flight and the unpredictable consequences of our ambitious pursuit of that dream. With text by Lisa D’Amour and Lisa Shattuck.
Images shot on location at Warren Chair Works