Lisa Loomer

Lisa Loomer is an American playwright and screenwriter who has also worked as an actress and stand-up comic. She is best known for her play The Waiting Room (1994), in which three women from different time periods meet in a modern doctor's waiting room, each suffering from the effects of their various societies' cosmetic body modification practices (foot binding, corsetry, and breast implantation). She also co-wrote the screenplay for the film Girl Interrupted. Many of her plays deal with the experiences of Latinx and immigrant characters. Others deal with social and political issues through the lens of contemporary family life. Beyond that, Loomer's play The Waiting Room discusses issues such as body image, breast cancer, and non-Western medicine.

Lisa Loomer was born in New York and moved to Mexico with her family in her late teens. Loomer studied theatre at Brandeis University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Loomer is married to composer and painter Joe Romano; they have one son, Marcello.

She is of Spanish and Romanian ancestry.

Lisa Loomer’s play ROE, about Roe v. Wade, was originally commissioned through the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s American Revolutions program. It was first produced at OSF in a production that traveled to Arena Stage and Berkeley Rep. It received the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award and the Pen Award.

Her play HOMEFREE was commissioned and developed at Denver Center Theater Company before receiving its world premiere in Los Angeles at The Road Theatre.

CAFÉ VIDA, about female gang members, was presented at The Los Angeles Theater Center by The Cornerstone Theater in partnership with Homeboy Industries, and was nominated for an Ovation Award for Best Play.

TWO THINGS YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT AT DINNER had its world premiere at The Denver Center.

DISTRACTED had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum and was subsequently produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The play was produced at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York in a production starring Cynthia Nixon, and has subsequently been produced in theatres throughout the U.S.

LIVING OUT had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum and was produced at Second Stage in New York. It has been produced at such theaters as Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, The Denver Center, and Theatreworks, often in bi-lingual productions, as well as in Israel, Europe and Mexico.

Her play THE WAITING ROOM went from The Williamstown Theater Festival to the Mark Taper Forum to highly successful productions at Arena Stage and Trinity Rep, and then to the Vineyard Theatre in New York. It has been widely produced nationally and internationally.

EXPECTING ISABEL had its world premiere at Arena Stage and its west coast premiere at the Taper. It has been produced in NY and nationally.

BOCóN!, a political fable for young audiences, began at the Taper and has been seen throughout the country, from the Kennedy Center, to Seattle’s Group Theater and the La Jolla Playhouse, as well as in Germany, Alaska, and Mexico. For the Cornerstone Theatre Company, she also wrote BROKEN HEARTS, produced at the Los Angeles Theater Center.

Loomer began her career as an actress and comedienne. Her first work for theater was A CROWD OF TWO at the American Place Theatre. This was followed by a one-woman show, ALL BY HERSELVES, at the Westside Arts. She began writing plays at the Intar Playwrights Lab, under the direction of Maria Irene Fornes. Her first play, BIRDS, was produced by South Coast Rep. Other works include MARIA, MARIA, MARIA, MARIA!, (Mixed Blood), ACCELERANDO, (The Odyssey) and LOOKING FOR ANGELS, (The Public Theater).

Loomer is an alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of two grants from the NEA and a grant from the NYFA. Awards include the Jane Chambers Award (twice), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, a Garland Award, a Lurie Foundation Award, an Ovation Award, and the American Theatre Critics Association Award (twice). She has also received an Imagen Award for positive portrayals of Latinos in all media. Her plays appear in THE BEST PLAYS OF 1998-1999, THE BEST PLAYS OF 1994-1995, and THE BEST PLAYS OF 2003-2004, and are published by Dramatists Play Service, TCG, Dramatic Publishing, and Arte Publico Press. ROE, THE WAITING ROOM and LIVING OUT are widely taught in university drama programs, Women’s Studies programs, and Latino Studies programs.

She also writes for film and television, both comedy and drama. Loomer is a supervising producer for season 2 of Love Is… on OWN. Her films include Girl Interrupted, and Nappily Ever After for Netflix. Loomer has written TV pilots for HBO, CBS, Fox, and Showtime.

Loomer has won the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (in 1994 for The Waiting Room), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, a Back Stage West Garland Award for Playwriting (in 2003 for Living Out), the Imagen Award for positive portrayals of Latinos in all media, and American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg New Play Award (in 1995 for The Waiting Room and in 1999 for Expecting Isabel.) She was also the recipient of 2 grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and one from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Select plays