ACTRESS
Elisa van Riessen - Actress
Elisa van Riessen is a Dutch Actress who lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
She graduated in 1989 from the Theatre School in Amsterdam. (https://www.atd.ahk.nl/opleidingen-theater/toneel-en-kleinkunst/) Since then she has played in theater: Freule Julie / Strindberg (Frascati Productions), Pericles / Shakespeare (Amphitheater), Lunch / Steven Berkoff (Bellevue Lunch Break Theater), Nora of het Poppenhuis / Ibsen (ELS inc) and Husbands / John Cassavetes (Frascati Productions). She played guest roles in several TV series including: Adem in Adem uit (2021 AT5), Atlanta (2021, HULU), Flikken Maastricht, Celblok H, GTST, Spangas, Van Speijk, Baantjer, 12 Cities 13 Accidents, Meiden van de Wit, and more. Since 2000 she also works as an actress in businesses and organizations trainings. She performs in various working methods: interactive theatre scenes, all kinds of modules and working methods. ao: Wilde Kastanje training and education, Talent naar de Top, Dubbel E Acteer Service, Van Iren Consultancy, Asscher Consultancy
In 2011 she founded BEMproductions with which she produced the performance Beloofd! A comic play about negotiations between mothers and adolescent daughters. She is currently writing a film script: 'Sponsor' a film about a middel aged woman who gets to deal with power abuse in an AA group.
She was born in a small a village in the countryside, in a family with 7 children. Her father was a veterinarian. A busy and chaotic family with lots of freedom. Mother played Bach on the piano while the breakfast table was still set in the afternoon.
Primary school was sitting still a lot and as a girl knitting pink baby socks while she preferred to join the boys with clay, that was not allowed. At 9 she had a teacher who asked her to make a play every two weeks on Friday afternoons. She could find out for herself what and with whom. She continued to do those plays in the other classes in the years that followed, with children often having to play the lampshade, which they gladly did. When the headmaster found out that one of the boys had secretly put real beer in a bottle during a performance, the plays came to an end. But she never stopped playing: to discover what it feels like to be someone else, the person behind the mask.
