Lanise Antoine Shelley

Lanise Antoine Shelley (she/her/hers)Haitian actress, director, playwright and podcast host. Selected directing credits include: A Tempest (staged reading at Red Bull Theater), The Tragedy of King Christophe (The Chopin), Just Cause (Defamation Experience), Pretended (written & directed for Paramount Theatre's Inception Project), Blue Manakin (Rising Sun Performance Company), Rastas & Hattie, Black & Blue, Muthaland (16th St Theatre) Identity Lab (Lookingglass Theatre), The Tenant (Akvavit Theatre), RefuSHE Project (Voices & Faces Project), Rumors (DePaul University). Associate Director: the world premiere of Plantation (Lookingglass Theatre, dir. David Schwimmer), Nell Gwynn (Chicago Shakespeare), The First Deep Breath (Victory Gardens Theatre) and The Snow Queen (American Repertory Theater), as well as staged readings at Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

She holds a BFA in directing, acting, and playwriting from Cornish College of the Arts, an MFA from ART/MXAT at Harvard University, certificate in Classical Theatre from BADA in Oxford, England, and Birmingham Conservatory. She was Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Chicago Fellow 2016 and Victory Gardens Theatre’s Directing Fellow 2019, and Drama League Classical Directing Fellow 2021. Presently Lanise is the host of the podcast "When They Were Young: Amplifying Voices of Adoptees" available on all listening platforms.