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Lisa L. Biggs, Ph.D, (1971- ) is an African American actress, playwright, and performance scholar.

Lisa grew up on the Southside of Chicago, and attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School in Hyde Park. She earned a BA in Theatre and Dance from Amherst College, and graduate degrees from New York University (MA, 2007) and Northwestern University (PhD Performance Studies, 2013). As an artist and scholar, Dr. Biggs researches the theory and practice of theatre for social change. She is interested in the role of the performing arts in movements for social justice.

After graduating from college, Lisa returned home to Chicago and began auditioning. In 1993, she was awarded the first Chicago Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Featured Actress Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Featured Actress for the Chicago Theatre Company's production of Faith and the Good Thing. From 1999-2001, Dr. Biggs was a member of the Living Stage Theatre Company, one of the preeminent theatre for social change programs in the country from its home in Washington, DC at Arena Stage. There she appeared in hundreds of improvisational theatre pieces and facilitated arts workshops for participants aged 3-103. Her acting credits also include productions at the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, African Continuum Theatre, and Lookinglass Theatre, and featured roles on film, radio, and TV, including the documentary, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2101500/ directed by Tanisha Christie and Ellie Walton.

Her work as a performer is animated by a deep interest in the activism of Black women and girls, and a desire to develop new living history plays. Dr. Biggs has researched and written several new works -- Butterfly Belongings, Vigilante Artist, Memory is a Body of Water (with Tanisha Christie), Blackbirds and Where Spirit Rides. Her work has been performed at venues across the U.S. including Cultural Odyssey, Links Hall, Baltimore Theatre Project, Living Stage, DC Arts Center, Michigan State University, Amherst College, Goucher University, the NY Hip Hop Theatre Festival and the National Black Theatre Fest. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Illinois Humanities Council, DC Arts Council, and Michigan Humanities Council. Her most recent play, AFTER/LIFE, was awarded a 2016 Detroit Arts Challenge grant from the Knight Foundation to tell stories of women and girls during the 1967 Detroit rebellion.

In 2013, Lisa joined the faculty of Michigan State University. She taught theatre, performance and prison studies in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theater at Brown University.

Recent publications can be found at The Conversation, in Theatre Survey (2016), Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches (2016) and Solo/Black/Woman: Scripts, Interviews, Essays (2013).