contact name: Elisa Carlson
email: mehlloyd@yahoo.com

Pseudonym: Hurt

Related Organizations:
Associate Artist at Georgia Shakespeare, Resident Director and Actor at the Gainesville Theatre Alliance, Associate Professor of Voice and Movement at the University of North Georgia, Actor's Equity Association, Voice and Speech Trainers Association, The Association for Theatre Movement Educators.

Elisa Carlson was on the Artistic Staff of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for eight seasons coaching voice, speech, dialects and text for more than 30 productions.

Other coaching credits include Off-Broadway: The Time of Your Life (The Mint) and Southern Belle (New Dramatists). Also: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Players Theater, The Children’s Theater (MN), 25+ productions at the Alliance Theatre, the world premiere of the Michael Korie/Ricky Ian Gordon opera The Grapes of Wrath at The Minnesota Opera, Penumbra, Illusion, Mixed Blood, Theater Emory, Theatrical Outfit, North Carolina Shakespeare, Horizon Theater, Actor's Express, Synchronicity and more than 20 productions for Georgia Shakespeare where she is an Associate Artist.

Elisa has a special interest in new plays, having coached or acted in world premieres and workshops of plays by Tony Kushner, Lee Blessing, Kia Corthron, Naomi Iizuku, Jorge Cortinas, Robert Schenkkan, Julie Marie Myatt, Kelly Stuart, Allison Moore, Sandra Deer and Ellen McLaughlin among others.

Her acting credits include The Guthrie, The Strange Capers, The Playwright's Center, The Shakespeare Theater, StageWest, The Samuel French Festival, Theatre in the Square (Suzi Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress), Virginia Stage Company, The Alliance, Georgia Shakespeare, Theater Emory, Oklahoma Shakespeare Festival, Actor’s Express and the Tampere Theater in Finland. She played at the National Theatre of Cyprus and toured ancient Greek and Roman theaters with an international company of Antigone, directed by Heinz-Uwe Haus. She is a narrator of audio books for ListenUp! audio.

Film credits include acting in and coaching voice and text for Hamlet starring Campbell Scott and Blair Brown. She was dialect and foreign language coach for Ali Selim’s Sweet Land starring Alan Cumming and Ned Beatty, winner of the 2006 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. She created and coached language for Eric Howell’s Ana’s Playground, winner of numerous festivals and short-listed for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. She was dialect consultant for Kenny Leon's Lifetime film of Steel Magnolias, and recently wrapped as dialect coach for David Ayer's new feature film Ten starring Olivia Williams and Sam Worthington.

Elisa's directing credits include Much Ado About Nothing for Shakespeare on the Cape/Provincetown Theater Company, Love’s Labor’s Lost for Theater Emory, Folio Shakespeare for Atlanta's High Museum of Art, The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Gainesville Theatre Alliance, as well as Children of Oedipus, Orestes and Shaw’s Overruled for the Guthrie Theater’s BFA Actor Training Program. Directors she has worked with as a coach and/or actor include: Joe Dowling, Tim Bond, Ethan McSweeney, Susan Booth, Peter Brosius, Michael Greif, John Miller-Stephany, Chris Coleman, Lisa Peterson, Michael Dixon, Kenny Leon, Campbell Scott, Marcela Lorca, Eric Simonson, Tim Ocel, Tony Taccone, Sean Daniels, Nancy Keystone, Vinnie Murphy, Peter DuBois, Wendy C. Goldberg and Michael John Garces.

Elisa joined the Gainesville Theatre Alliance at the University of North Georgia in suburban Atlanta as Resident Actor/Director and Associate Professor of Voice and Movement in the fall of 2010. She taught voice and speech on the Theater Studies faculty at Emory University and taught in the Alliance Theatre and Actor's Express professional acting intern programs from 1995-2001, and from 2002-2010 taught voice, speech and period styles in the Guthrie's BFA Actor Training Program at the University of Minnesota. She has taught workshops for the Mint, the Guthrie Experience, Columbia University, Florida State University, American Players Theatre, the Southeastern Theatre Conference and the University of Alabama.

Elisa has a B.F.A. in acting from Florida State University and an M.F.A in acting from the University of Delaware's Professional Theatre Training Program. She studied acting at HB Studio and voice/text with Catherine Fitzmaurice and Patsy Rodenburg in New York.

SUZI Award Nomination (2012), Outstanding Lead Actress for Ghost-Writer

Country of Citizenship:
United States

Birth Place:
Griffin, Georgia

Gender:
Female

Active Place:
Nationwide

Minnesota County:
Hennepin

Theater