Lissette Espaillat

Lissette Espaillat was born on January 28th to Dominican parents, in Upper Manhattan's, Washington Heights. As a child, she studied Ballet, Jazz and Modern dance. While in grade school, she enjoyed working on theater productions but always tended to stay behind the scenes. After High School, she attended Parsons: The New School in NY, to get her BFA in Drama and Photography. During college, she also interned at the prestigious, Ensemble Studio Theater where her true love of acting, began. A few years later, she studied with Actor, Director and Playwright Bruce Ornstein. During this time, she went on to do various off, off Broadway plays such as "Fool for Love", "Running" and "The Captives". In 2003, Lissette was taking voice lessons with Philip Campenella in NY, when she was offered the role of 'Dulcinea' in a contemporary musical adaptation of the classic, "Don Quixote". In 2004, she started working with Bill Hopkins at the Stella Adler Acting Academy. Bill gave her the encouragement she needed to pursue more film work and in late 2004, she landed her first lead in a feature film titled "Knockout of the Century". In it she played a wife and mother, living with Aids. Other lead roles followed on both stage and screen. She played Gladys in Teatro La Tea's production of "Chained Dog", written by Rob Santana and directed by Writer, Director; Jerry Rodriguez and "Tales of an Addict", a one woman show written by Torri Oats.