BY LUCIA MAURO
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Lisa Lewis’ Web site (www.lisalewis.net) does not include a typical headshot or resume. Instead, an animated figure invites visitors to "The Interactive Voice Wardrobe"–a site that highlights Lewis’ voice-over skills–to mix and match their own vocal package. One page, illustrated with a paper-doll and different cut-out clothing, allows potential clients to visually build the character for the voice they are seeking. It’s playful yet precise. Like Lewis herself, it epitomizes the notion of serious fun.
"I continue to be tickled by the many different aspects of the business," says Lewis, over a BLT and jumbo-size iced tea at the Lincoln Restaurant. "The holy grail is earning a living doing what you love."
Widely known throughout the Chicago improv scene, Lewis seems to wear as many different career outfits as her Web site features. She is a professional actress with extensive stage experience (including a production of Uncle Vanya with Hal Holbrook at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Theater Festival), a respected improviser, an in-demand voice-over talent and, since 2001, SAG president for Chicago.
She’s also fiercely candid about the inherent unpredictability of show business, and has crafted her own definition for success: "No one follows the same path. Your journey is your journey. And I realized a few years ago that you don’t get to choose to make a living as an actor–it chooses you."
Quite bluntly, Lewis admits that she "never, ever wanted to be a movie star." She continues, "My goals were not about being famous. When I realized I could do something I enjoy beyond everything else and make a living at it, I was knocked out by it."
Lewis, who says she was born Catholic and a Cubs fan, grew up in Davenport, Iowa–a city where acting was not the top career choice. But she describes herself as one of those kids who "always wanted to be in the play." An imaginative child, she dreamed of growing up to be a magical genie, a roller-derby queen or a lawyer. As an actor, she could essentially be all three.
As young as four, she toured the neighborhood with her one-woman show. Every week after watching Lily Tomlin’s Edith-Ann routine on "Laugh-In," Lewis would schlep a lawn chair from house to house and recreate Tomlin’s character verbatim to exceptionally patient and supportive neighbors.
At the same time, she insists she was not "little Trixie what-not." Lewis didn’t take ballet or tap classes. Her parents were into sports, and she gravitated toward swimming, gymnastics and softball–always managing to be "on" as a child.
Lewis says her fourth-grade nun was very influential. She asked Lewis to memorize the part of the narrator for a performance of The Falconer’s Christmas. And the actor recalls that, besides being encouraging, her teacher was a disciplinarian: "I needed that discipline to focus all of those exhibitionist tendencies."
During her sophomore year in high school, Lewis auditioned for The Miser on a dare from her mother. She got cast as a servant. "The first line I ever uttered on stage," recounts Lewis after a few puffs on her cigarette and a guttural laugh, "was, 'But sir, I have oil on my skirt from the lamb.’"
Lewis also loved to write and considered majoring in broadcast journalism, but she did not get her degree. Instead life happened. She got married at 19 and moved with her first husband to Cleveland, where she honed her acting and improv chops. Her range encompasses comedy, drama, the classics and musicals.
"It never really occurred to me that I could make a living as an actor," says Lewis.
Then, at the opening night party for a show she was doing in Cleveland in the mid-1980s, someone told Lewis that she had an amazing voice and should consider doing voice-overs. "I had this voice since I was 8," quips the actor in a smoky, full-bodied tone. Lewis is currently the voice of "NBC Nightly News" and Lifetime Television’s "Final Justice" (the promo spots) and has a large roster of national on-camera commercial clients. She has appeared in Artisan’s Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon, as well as several independent films shot in Chicago.
Lewis got her start in improv in 1988 when she joined the improv group Giant Portions in Cleveland. Because she had come from a background of scripted work, she found it difficult early on and says it took her "years to let go." Then she got so obsessed with improv that she stopped doing plays for two years.
Eventually, a marriage between improv and scripted material happened when Lewis was cast in John Patrick Shanley’s Savage in Limbo at Cleveland’s Dobama Theater. "It was the first time I had the experience of flying on stage. It was the purest form of 'in-the-moment.’ Improv teaches you to be open to that experience."
She finds that improv and scripted work feed each other. From 1991-94, she performed with Cleveland’s Great Lakes Theater Festival under the artistic direction of Gerald Freedman. During her audition for the theatre’s performance-based Shakespeare outreach program (geared toward junior high and high school students) Lewis delivered a traditional Shakespeare monologue and a less conventional Bard-related monologue from Educating Rita. She says it was the only time in an audition when she held for a laugh. Humor is at the heart of her work.
"I like comedy," she says. "I was never the ingenue, even when I was an ingenue. I see myself as the second lead, the best friend–the woman who comes out of the bathroom looking put together but has toilet paper stuck to her shoe. Human, flawed people. I’m drawn to that. Warts and all. That comes most naturally to me.
"We have to find the humor in everything–even in Death of a Salesman–or we die. We can’t go on."
In Cleveland, Lewis divided her time between Great Lakes Theater Festival, Giant Portions, getting cast as Charlotte in A Little Night Music at the summer-based Cain Park, teaching audition technique at the Cleveland Playhouse, and waiting tables. Her life tends to span the gamut. And her best advice to aspiring improvisers is "get out and live."
But she doesn’t knock training, instead favoring a combination of strong technique and life experiences. Lewis does warn against the tendency of improvisers to immerse themselves in classes from different institutions. "A lot of people try to cram an improvisational education into one year," she notes. "And while I understand their enthusiasm, they have to realize that improv takes years of experience. Your work is so much richer as you grow."
She is also adamant about improv being an end in and of itself: "Improv is often used as means to an end–like a way to break into the commercial realm or film or the Second City mainstage." But Lewis, who does not fault improvisers for seeking those goals, encourages them to respect the form and learn from it.
Her journey through the improv arena has been a long and multi-layered one. In 1994, Lewis moved to Chicago as an Equity actor and continued to alternate between improv and scripted plays. Meanwhile, she expanded her voice-over and commercial gigs.
Lewis took classes at ImprovOlympic to learn the Harold and calls it "kismet" that she landed on such a synergistic team, Georgia Pacific. "There was never a weak link on that team," she enthuses. "The goal was to always make the other guy look like a genius–the belief system that nothing was ever wrong."
While at ImprovOlympic for seven years, she also was part of the original all-female team Jane. Lewis then studied improv at the Annoyance, where she is still an ensemble member. Annoyance served as a bridge between improv and scripted material: "Sometimes you are purely improvising or improvising to find a script." At Annoyance, she appeared in Co-Ed Prison Sluts, Tippi, That Darned Anti-Christ and more. It was here that she says she reconnected to her "spirit of play–and that’s what good acting is."
She credits the Annoyance’s Mick Napier with, in improv, instilling the crucial "concept of making a strong declaration for yourself early in a scene." For Lewis, "to improvise successfully, you have to take care of yourself. If you’re not solid yourself, you’re an albatross to the person next to you."
This confident idea is reflected in Lewis’ view of women in improv. She believes it’s up to the individual to break through any pre-conceived barriers and make the most of what might be viewed as a stereotype. For instance, she points out, "a wife can be a CEO–being a wife or a girlfriend on stage really isn’t as limiting as our panicked brains make it."
"Put yourself out there and don’t apologize for being there" is Lewis’ message to women. And she stresses, "Every minute you waste thinking about how you fit in as a woman is a minute you lose thinking about how you fit in as a human being. Just do it. What’s important is that you play well and have fun.
"Women performers kicked the door open for us 30 years ago. The door is off the hinges, ladies. Walk through it."
Another way Lewis actively encourages Chicago artists is through her roles as president of SAG’s Chicago branch, the performing unions’ representative to the Executive Board of the Illinois AFL-CIO, and membership in the Illinois Production Alliance.
"When I was elected [as SAG president]," explains Lewis, "I felt I would not just be the face of the national organization to local members. I wanted to do whatever I could to see as many Chicago SAG members working as possible.
"I see it not so much as an internal job, but as a community job. Here in Chicago, this is an industry that’s on the brink due to run-away productions and the economy. This is make-it-or-break-it time. We cannot afford to have actors waiting to have jobs created. I felt it was important for actors to pull their weight."
Currently, Lewis is active in pushing for state and local legislation (like tax incentives) to encourage more indigenous film productions. In addition to Canada, she talks about the reality of nearby states that offer better tax incentives than Illinois. Besides the monetary loss, Lewis is concerned that when film production "goes off shore, we’re losing a cultural export."
She is committed to encouraging local talent and to the inspiring idea of being able to make a living doing what you love. She has always been attracted to performing because of the thrill of "creating something that wasn’t there before." Lewis speaks of her love of puzzles and games. With improv, she likes to see how the pieces will fit together on any given night and believes performers can find a game in anything.
"I just want to show up and play the game," she says. "It’s that simple."