Actress singer and songwriter Lisa Zane was born and raised in Chicago, studied theatre, languages and art at Vassar College and at the University of Florence in Italy. She began her career as an actress at The Goodman Theater in Chicago, cast as Varya in the world premier of David Mamet’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, (with Lindsay Crouse, Peter Riegert and W.H. Macy).
She was invited to star in several other world premiering plays, including Craig Lucas’s Prelude to a Kiss, for which she won a Dramalogue Award for best actress in Los Angeles.
Throughout the nineties, Zane acted in over twenty feature films, including Academy award winner Curtis Hanson’s Bad Influence opposite Rob Lowe and James Spader, and went on to vanquish Freddy Krueger in the iconic horror film Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, for which her fans still honor her. She starred in many popular series: L.A. Law, for which she received a People’s Choice Award, the megahit ER, Profit, Roar and Dinotopia; She has guest starred on Law and Order, The Outer Limits, and countless others, and starred in T.V. movies for HBO, CBS, FOX, NBC and Hallmark. Zane also voiced She Hulk in the animated series, as well as Madame Masque in Iron Man, among others. IMDB
In 1998 Zane started singing for the public, invited by legendary impresario Michele Lamy to perform weekly at her world famous Les Deux Cafes in Los Angeles. For six months she grew a repertoire of seminal songs in four languages, Spanish, French, Italian and English, and made her reputation as a modern chanteuse of international scope. By the turn of the century, Zane was living in New York City, and performing regularly at Joe’s Pub and The Cutting Room, and writing her first collection of songs.
Zane has performed at the Musica D’Elba Jazz Festival in Italy, the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, the Ravinia Festival, and many private events, on the same bill with artists as varied as Placido Domingo and Grace Jones.
In 2005, Zane released her self titled debut CD of original material, produced with Flamenco guitarist Hernan Romero, which laces American musical genres with Latin and European influences, and from it, her song ‘Day Bed’ was chosen by the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame for its 2006 New Writer’s Compilation CD.
As a BMI songwriter, Zane licenses her recordings, and compositions for film and television soundtracks. She’s created lyrics for songs commissioned for the series Charmed, the film ‘I Woke up Early the Day I Died’ and the short film ‘The Make-Over’; her rendition of the Mexican folk song ‘La Llorona’ was used in the Hallmark film Missing Pieces in which she played the female lead opposite Academy Award winner James Coburn. She also appeared as The Medusa, performing a techno-trance version of the Roxy Music hit ‘Love is the Drug’ in the graphic novel-based feature film Monkeybone starring Academy Award winner Brendan Frasier.
In 2006, Zane moved to Paris, and was based there for the next 5 years. The Swan Bar, a jazz club in Montparnasse, featured her twice monthly that year, and she also found a growing and appreciative international audience in London, where she gave solo concerts at The Pigalle Club, Momo’s and Home House, the venerable members only club.
In 2007, she was commissioned by the Oak Park Village Players of Oak Park, Illinois to create a one woman show based around her music; she created the theatre piece entitled BARS; The Girl on the Piano, about saloon singing, a subject dear to her heart.
In 2011, her acapella rendition of Mikis Theodorakis’ Sta Pervolia was commissioned for the end credits of the Lionsgate feature film Coriolanus directed by Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes.
In 2014, Zane released her second Cd of original music, entitled Val D’Amour, building on the style of her debut cd: lyric and melody driven narratives favoring Latin rhythms, with one or two classic covers in a foreign language; Her collaborators, 3 time Grammy winning Cuban bassist Carlitos Del Puerto (Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder), and multifaceted Mexican American virtuoso guitarist Omar Torrez (Tom Waits, Roberto Mendoza). The record also features Lili Haydn on violin (Herbie Hancock, Robert Plant), and Andrew Chukerman on piano (Rod Stewart, Carly Simon) engineered by Latin Grammy winner Eduardo Larez at Visionear Studios, and mixed at Earls Music Production by Lynne Earls (K.D. Lang’s ‘Watershed’) In 2024, seven songs from this album were licensed for an upcoming feature film entitled Int. Hallway/Night.
In 2014, Zane moved back to her hometown of Chicago where she co-starred in three local feature films, Game Day, Later Days, Alex/October, and guest starred on Chicago Justice, while continuing to compose and perform music. At a performance for the Chicago International Music in Movies festival, she met classical guitarist Rafael Vivanco. They formed a duo and launched two music projects, a classical and world music ensemble, and her longtime vision of a rock band called Flapunco. Their collaboration thus far has produced a record entitled ‘Mysteries of Spain’, released in late 2023; A duet album featuring a collection of seminal Spanish classical songs by Manuel De Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo, Fernand Obradores and others, adapted and arranged for guitar and voice by Vivanco, and offering the distinction of first time original lyrics composed in French by Zane, to traditionally instrumental pieces. They are currently at work on the Flapunco record.
While in Chicago, Lisa was invited to show her photography for the first time, and several exhibitions followed. She now sells her fine art prints at the Eskell Chicago boutique and online; Photographs dating back to her Freshman year in high school, and forward through her life and travels.