Stathoplos
lisa
Stathoplos
writer ✧ actor ✧ behavior specialist ✧ educator
Writer
Make Me
a memoir
Make Me, Lisa Stathoplos’ searingly honest and dark humored memoir explores how one comes to be, comes to live in their own skin, exist in their very bones. In 1958 Lisa landed on this earth with a whack and a wail and the highly uncomfortable feeling that she shouldn’t be here. Regardless, here she is. Born into a fusion of the French and the Greeks, Lisa’s wickedly smart and loving family nurtures her from fussy baby, “moody” child, into a passionate, rebellious young woman.
Set in the beauty of southern Maine, with forays to the Caribbean, the Atlantic shipping lanes and Greece, Make Me is both as tempestuous and tranquil as the sea when Lisa takes us on her voyage toward acceptance and authenticity. Her stories of growing up Catholic, coming of age beside the turbulent Atlantic ocean, discovering dance, her activism and becoming a successful professional actor as well as a fishwife, are fraught, rewarding and often hysterically funny.
Make Me follows Lisa’s memories in and out of chronological time, landing on the significant ones that shaped her most of all. The language is crisply straightforward, hauntingly witty, and emotionally fathomless. Make Me is an oceanic ride into Lisa’s very soul and should be read by anyone who is becoming who they truly are or has already arrived.
Suze Allen (Editor)
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BookLife/Publishers Weekly Review
Debut author and professional actor and teacher Stathoplos’ boisterous, energetic memoir offers revealing snapshots of her journey towards self-realization. Covering her early days as an awkward child with scoliosis and a penchant for activism to her career on the stage, Stathoplos combines humor and heartache as she bounds frankly through topics such as her family, religion, sexual assault, shelter pets, sailing, eating disorders, and the courage and perseverance it took to get through a “nightmare” of a dancing class. Along with the backdrop of major events like the Vietnam War, era-specific music adds color and texture to her story, along with rich details of growing up along Maine’s coast in the 1970s.
Stathoplos’ brash style brims with all-caps phrases and exclamation points. Her sarcastic sense of humor is a constant in a book that shifts rapidly from topic to topic and experience to experience. She marshals her considerable life experience into a confetti of short, readable vignettes, each preceded by a number of related photographs. These vignettes offer flashes of insight into both single moments and extended eras of Stathoplos’ life, blending her exuberant commentary with finely etched detail. Though fragmented, the casual, rollicking cascade of stories has the feel of a chatty friend telling stories over drinks.
Stathoplos’ memoir doubles as a love letter to theater. True to her contrarian nature, she challenges the assumption that an artist must leave home to seek fame and fortune in the big city. Instead, she forges her own path, without apology. While her performances and colleagues in Maine’s regional theater scene aren't household names, her sharply told accounts and anecdotes resonate, and her passionate support for local theater is invigorating. Similarly inspiring is Stathoplos’ dogged journey towards self-acceptance, both physical and mental, the book’s true heart. Readers will find the perspective Stathoplos offers on her life both on and off the stage honest, refreshing and often endearing.
“Lisa Stathoplos is as mesmerizing on the page as she is on the stage. She has given us a memoir that is witty, warm, wise and above all searingly honest. We would expect no less from an artist whose career is inseparable from the history of theatre in Maine.”
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Michael Rafkin - founding Artistic Director, Mad Horse Theatre
Praise & Reviews
“Over her decades in Maine’s theater community, Lisa Stathoplos has been an actor of irrepressible energy and uncommon empathy, and a luminous artist and presence among us. In Make Me, she brings these same qualities to her vivid, irrepressible telling of her own origin story, from a childhood amidst the waves and riggings of Wells and Ogunquit to a young adulthood helping to found some of Portland’s most important theater companies. Throughout this memoir, Stathoplos’s candor and passion are scintillating and her scenes delicious in details. In Make Me, Stathoplos invites us into the very particular locales and ethos of Southern Maine and its exceptional theater community and, as she does, she shares with us the power of a life driven not just by talent and ambition, but by a ferociously abiding love.”
Megan Grumbling - poet, critic, editor, teacher, and writing mentor.
“Reading Make Me is like having your ear inside Lisa’s head, hearing directly the thoughts firing in her temporal lobe. Her distinctive voice – angry, impatient, joyful, strident, strong – is compelling, unapologetically truthful. So much is revealed on the slant, and her use of lyrics throughout creates a soundtrack of the times. I loved being a spy in the houses of her childhood, of coming of age, of reaching maturity. At last, her stunning honesty on stage is matched – in her telling of her own story.”
Mary Snell, MFA -- writer and poet; former staff writer and theater critic, Maine Sunday Telegram
Readers' Reviews
of
Make Me
Suzanne Bachner
5.0 out of 5 stars A STUNNING Memoir!
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2021
I just loved every bit of lisa stathoplos' stunning memoir, MAKE ME: her unmistakable voice, vivid imagery, the kaleidoscopic unfolding of the story and every moment of sensory experience so immediately created for us. From the longing, the desire, the attainment all under the watchful eye of the CC (Catholic Church) to battling illness and never naming it, but nailing it to the the turbulent and exciting Maine theatre scene, lisa has created a moving, vivid, wonderful work. The book itself is also a treat to hold and behold with its fantastic design, evocative black and white photographs and artful transitions. The content is a knockout! Incredible tension built throughout and a powerful and engaging story. You will fall in love with lisa: the kid, the young adult and the narrator
5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable read, funny, moving, honest and authentic!
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2021
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This was truly a delight to read. Lisa has such a fresh, bold voice and isn't afraid to share all the hilarious, painful, and uncomfortable truths behind her journey to become the person she was meant to be. She delivers a uniquely personal and witty stream of thoughts and memories of her childhood. With much hilarity, she paints the very personal tale of stumbling through the murky waters of adolescence, in a multi-cultural Catholic family, in a small coastal Maine town during the 60s and 70s. She emerges from those tumultuous years as a gifted actress and writer, with a unique, honest voice and delightful wit! Reading it brings you back to your own childhood and those painful adolescent memories tucked somewhere in the dark recesses of your mind.
5.0 out of 5 stars A TERRIFIC BOOK, colorful, passionate, honest, and FUNNY!!
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021
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Gorgeous book! Lisa's voice is unique and passionate. Her rapid-fire pacing, vibrant style, wicked sense of humor and TOTAL HONESTY made this a lightening fast read and left me haunted with awe for girls and women, mothers and daughters, sisters and friends, and what it is to grow up as a girl in this world, especially during the Sixties and Seventies.
The array of wildly colorful real characters and Lisa's keen and fierce observations and passionate reactions are as entertaining as they are heart-wrenching. This is a terrific read and a great book to give as a gift to all the women in your life.
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful work!
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2021
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Lyrical, brutal, hilarious, frightening. Amazing eye for detail, be it on the stage or on the sea or in the pews of a Catholic Church. The scenes of studying theatre in a university in small town Maine in the 70's are particularly finely drawn. It is the unflinching honesty on every page sings out and compels the reader like only a fine actor can do with an audience. I have read the recent memoirs of Langella, Nolte, Lithgow and the "Dos Equis guy" and this book belongs on the same shelf (or kindle). Oh, and kudos for the "soundtrack" of a life! Such fun!
5.0 out of 5 stars Make Me, by Lisa Stathoplos
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2021
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I wish all women would read this honest, often raw, but also very funny memoir. Men, too (if you dare to know the inside of a woman's mind) because it exquisitely reveals how women have had to adapt to simply being alive. I also grew up in Maine in the 70s and 80s, but that hardly matters. For young and old, Lisa's memories and experiences speak directly to what it means to be within a family and larger culture, whenever and wherever you may grow up or come-of-age. True to the inner monologue of her own life -- and of so many women's lives -- we are all able to share through these pages that Life is one tough but exciting place to navigate.
5.0 out of 5 stars Unapologetically honest, sincerely funny
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2021
Lisa has done it again in a new medium! She is not only a wonderfully believable actor , she is now an extremely relatable and readable writer. She not only writes about but allows us to participate in her experiences. Her physical and ideological struggles are those recognized by many less capable of honestly expressing them. She writes a memoir unapologetically honest, sincerely funny and enjoyably readable. She does all this in a format which ignores the stuffy structure of chronology. Her unconfined memories make her book both thought provoking and fun. I urge you not to miss it! KK
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read!
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2021
I read the whole book in one sitting. It's a mesmerizing stream of thoughts and memories told in a very bold style. It's soo refreshing to find a writer who isn't afraid to be completely exposed and brutally honest.
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing trip through an extraordinary life
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021
Lisa lays bare the bumpy, hilarious, painful journey to become the person she was meant to be. Navigating the waters of her beloved coastal Maine, her multi-cultural family and Catholic indoctrination, she comes out the other end a unique, gifted actress and writer who is poised to take on the rest of her life with resolve and strength. A must read.
5.0 out of 5 stars A Wild Ride
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2021
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Wow! Lisa Stathoplos’ memoir, Make Me, is a wild ride! The reader is transported into the author’s head and each irreverent thought will make you laugh, cringe, or cry. This devastatingly honest memoir captures significant events in Lisa’s life; maddening, poignant, hilarious, and harrowing, that MAKE HER who she is. From growing up on the idyllic coast of southern Maine to becoming a successful professional actor in the Portland theatre scene, from hair-raising adventures on land and sea to intimate stories of her Greek and French families, each chapter is engaging and richly detailed as she becomes her authentic self.
5.0 out of 5 stars Authentic, honest and humorous
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2021
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Lisa's storytelling of her first 30 something years on planet earth is funny, honest, and authentic. Reading this book made me laugh, cry and sing, as she kept citing the different song titles of the times. Her story tells a lot about how she felt growing up, right from her core and made me feel my own. The way she describes different times in her life is sometimes painful, and true; you can feel her pain, and also her joy.
I could see her moving through life as she unfolded the scenarios that have made her who she is. I enjoyed this book immensely!
Coming Soon
Chimera / A Shapeshifter's Journey
Chimera is a tapestry of tales told in the manner of things remembered. They are tales of married life and divorce, birth, death and loss, motherhood, a life on the stage and in behavioral education, addiction and its myriad adjuncts, mental illness, and remaking oneself. Lisa's story is told and shared with hope for compassion, understanding, humor, love and forgiveness.
“Truth is the backbone of this emotionally raw, dramatically charged reminiscence of a life lived to a rock-and-roll soundtrack….. Where others might prefer to forget tragedy and heartbreak, Lisa remembers the details and makes us laugh, cry and reflect.”
Joe Sikoryak: Cartoonist, Designer and Filmmaker. San Francisco creator of a graphic novel memoir entitled "When We Were Trekkies.”
"The stories in this book are told in the manner of things remembered. Like memory, they jump around in time and spirit; I make no apology for one tale not directly leading to the next but, instead, I attempt to take the reader along with me on my journey as it unfolds in my older mind. Some tellings may read like dreamscape; memory can be a sly trickster. Perhaps some of these remembrances will resonate and be familiar. Or maybe they offer a window into a world unknown to you. Each recounting, largely from the second half of my life, has meaning for me in terms of shaping me, changing or teaching me. Each has lasting import to me. They are tales of married life and divorce, birth, death and loss, motherhood, a life on the stage and in behavioral education, addiction and its myriad adjuncts, mental illness, and remaking oneself. It is a part of my story, told and shared with hope for compassion, understanding, humor, love and forgiveness. A hope I think all humans share."
lisa Stathoplos
"For every student, every young person I have been privileged to know
and for anyone, everyone, anywhere
who has struggled
simply to “be” in this harsh world."
lisa
