Hello, it’s me.

Hollis Witherspoon is an artist, performer, teacher and drama therapist who lives and works in New York City.  She worked as an actor and improviser for many years, appearing in numerous independent films, comedy web series, commercials, and in the experimental theatre scene at spaces like LaMama, Bushwick Starr, Ontological-Hysteric and the Brick. Hollis frequently collaborates with artists on performance projects as a director, actor and deviser. She has produced and contributed to the multi-media storytelling series Start the Car, written and performed in short films with her improv collaborators, and directed Lior Shvil’s long form military improvisation piece “Protocols“, at High Desert Test Sites in Joshua Tree, CA and for Art In General in NYC. For many years, Hollis developed artist-centered improvisation curriculum at various institutions including Columbia University, NYU, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, SVA, and at Pratt Institute, where she is on faculty in the Fine Arts department. Improvisation as a practice of mental freedom, spontaneity and curiosity led her to pursue her Master’s in Drama Therapy at NYU. Hollis now works with individuals and groups as a drama therapist while pursuing new forms of the personal, experimental, interactive, ritual and creative. She continues to create her ongoing series The Untitled Anthropology Project, a series of verbatim monologue video pieces she began in 2016. Hollis looks forward to bringing her version of Performance Art: theory and practice to Southern Oregon University as a visiting artist lecturer in Spring 2020.

*The Tomato*

© Hollis Witherspoon 2017