Lisa Goldman
Author of The No Rules Handbook,
Writer, Director & Script Consultant
About Lisa Goldman
Lisa Goldman is a director, writer and creative consultant. Her first book The No Rules Handbook for Writers was published by Oberon Books in April 2012 and became an Amazon No 1 Digital Bestseller.
Lisa specialises in new writing. As a dramaturg, she works closely with writers to develop their plays. Writers she has worked with recently include Joshua Sobol, Luo Dajun, Anders Lustgarten, Sabrina Mahfouz, Natasha Langridge, Cameron Chalmers and Hassan Abdulrazzak.
Lisa is a director of new writing - most recently Martina Cole's Dangerous Lady for Theatre Royal Stratford East; Inheritance by Mike Packer for Live Theatre and a radio version of the stage play This isn’t Romance by In-Sook Chappell for CBLtd and BBC Radio 3 The Wire.
Until June 2010 Lisa was Artistic Director and joint Chief Executive of Soho Theatre and previously for 11 years she was founding Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Red Room. For these companies she developed, directed and produced a remarkable body of radical, influential new theatre writing.
World premieres she directed at Soho Theatre: Behud by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti (runner-up Index on Censorship Award 2010); Shraddha by Natasha Langridge (winner of Meyer Whitworth Award 2010); Everything Must Go, the first UK theatre about the economic crisis with new work by Will Eno, Bola Agbaje, Oladipo Agboluaje; Paula Stanic; Marisa Carnesky; Maxwell Golden, Kay Adshead, Megan Barker; This isn’t Romance by In-Sook Chappell (winner of Verity Bargate Award 2007) ; Piranha Heights (runner up WOS Best Production Award 2008) and Leaves of Glass with Ben Whishaw and Maxine Peake, both by Philip Ridley; Baghdad Wedding by Hassan Abdulrazzak (winner of George Devine and Meyer Whitworth awards 2008); A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians by Dorota Maslowska co-translated by Lisa Goldman and Paul Sirett (and starring Andrea Riseborough).
To find out more about her programme at Soho Theatre click here
For the Red Room she directed Hoxton Story which she also wrote and devised, a walkabout site specific experience about the social cleansing of London with accompanying archive, book and website.; The Bogus Woman by Kay Adshead at the Bush/Traverse an international tour (winner of Fringe First and Manchester Evening News Awards and runner up Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2001/2). See video documentation of both these productions here. She also commissioned and produced some of Anthony Neilson’s most controversial work - The Censor (winner of Writers Guild Award and Time Out Live Awards Best Play 2001) and Stitching (winner of Time out Live Award Best Production and Herald Angel and the Stage Best Performer 2003) as well as The Night before Christmas and has produced/ developed/directed plays by many other radical award winning writers including Judy Upton, most notably with Sunspots and Know Your Rights and Parv Bancil with Made in England. For more about Lisa’s work with the Red Room click here.
Lisa has directed four radio plays: Hanging (BBC R4 Friday Play); the Bogus Woman (BBC R3 Sunday Play); Baghdad Wedding (BBC R3 Sunday Play); This isn’t Romance (BBC R3 The Wire). She has also directed a short 35mm film My Sky is Big (14min), which you can watch here.
Lisa has written seven plays, five of which have been produced. She is currently writing her first novel. For Lisa’s work as a writer click here.
As well as a first class degree in Drama and English, an MA in Creative and Life Writing and a postgraduate diploma in directing, Lisa has qualifications in coaching and facilitating action learning. She frequently works as a coach and mentor most often in the creative industries and with postgraduate students. She also brings these techniques into her work with writers as a script consultant and when running masterclasses for writers and directors. She has a wide experience of teaching and facilitation spanning 25 years.
Lisa grew up in an East London family with a history of political persecution and activism. She is an internationalist who is passionate about free speech and promoting interculturalism. She has recently spoken on platforms about the imprisonment of filmmaker Jafar Panahi, whom she met whilst in Iran in 2010. She was the first to invite the Belarus Free Theatre to perform in London in 2008 and in 2001 she co-founded Artists Against the War, a spark to much anti-war art activism. She has been a Board Member for two female led performance companies, Marisa Carnesky Productions and Time Won’t Wait with whom she is presently an Associate.