Elizabeth Addison
Passionate and empathetic with a unique blend of experience in personal development, creative expression, and addiction recovery who utilizes excellent communication, interpersonal, artistic and facilitation skills to support clients and rehearsal processes. Skilled in guiding individuals through transformative journeys using trauma-informed coaching, creative arts, and holistic practices. Proven ability to inspire and empower diverse clients to unlock their potential, overcome obstacles, and build fulfilling, purpose-driven lives.
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Elizabeth Addison is an award-winning writer, director, and multidisciplinary theatre artist whose work explores addiction recovery, transformation, memory, and personal storytelling. She has written three original musicals, including Chasing Grace, which completed a successful Off-Broadway run at ART/NY’s Mezzanine Theatre and won Best Musical and Best Direction at the 2023 SheNYC Festival. In 2021, she was the Music Director on the short film, The Slave Narratives of Willie Mae. Her other writing credits include productions presented at 92NY about Musical Theatre Icon Jonathan Larson and Motown 's Holland-Dozier-Holland, and she is a recipient of a 2024–25 Boston Foundation LAB Grant. Elizabeth most recently served as Assistant Director on The Gateway’s production of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. In 2025, she became the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center. Her research-driven practice brings together musical-theatre craft, historical inquiry, and community-centered storytelling.
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Elizabeth Addison is an award-winning writer, director, and multidisciplinary theatre artist whose work explores addiction recovery, transformation, memory, and the power of personal storytelling. Her practice brings together original musical-theatre writing, historical and cultural research, directing, and community-engaged creative work.
Elizabeth has written three original musicals, including Chasing Grace, which recently completed a successful Off-Broadway run at ART/NY’s Mezzanine Theatre. Chasing Grace won Best Musical and Best Direction at the 2023 SheNYC Festival and was a semifinalist for the 2023 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Music Theater Conference.
In 2021, Elizabeth was the Music Director for the short film, The Slave Narratives of Willie Mae. Her writing credits also include The Songs and Legacy of Jonathan Larson and Motown’s Heatwave: The Songs of Holland–Dozier–Holland, both presented at 92NY. She is a recipient of the 2024–25 Boston Foundation LAB Grant and is currently developing 1:58: An Act of Becoming, a new musical work rooted in questions of identity, recovery, and becoming.
Elizabeth most recently served as Assistant Director on The Gateway’s production of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. In 2025, she was the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, where her work engaged the relationship between creativity, recovery, and lived experience. Her practice has also been recognized in Professor Dani Snyder-Young’s Sticking Stigma: Affect, Performance, and the Movement of Social Norms.
Alongside her theatre practice, Elizabeth is a creative recovery coach and motivational speaker who conducts research-driven creative development and leads workshops internationally on creativity, play, and storytelling. She is particularly interested in creating work that connects individual testimony with larger cultural, historical, and social narratives.
Trainings
Recovery Coach Academy
COURRAGE Narrative Therapy
Ethical Considerations for Recovery Coaches
Professionalism for Recovery Coaches
Infinite Pathways of Recovery
GPS Trauma Informed Group Facilitation
Recovery Storytelling
Embodied Storytelling
Storytelling for the Workforce
History of the War on Drugs and Racism
Motivational Interviewing
DEI & Anti-racist approaches in the workplace
Psychodrama
Acting for the Stage I/II
Scene Study
Improv
Experience
Creative Recovery Coach/Storytelling & Songwriting Facilitator
The Meghann Perry Group, Bridgewater, MA
September 2020 - Present
Facilitate a process of learning and healing through the tools of first person narrative storytelling, songwriting and trauma informed group facilitation.
Individual story coaching sessions for advocacy and performance.
Analyzed results and identified areas of improvement for future sessions.
Created engaging activities that encouraged collaboration and peer to peer support.
Community Engagement Coordinator/Director/Producer for This is Treatment and Chasing Grace
Boston, MA & New York City
Sept 2020– Present
Cultivate relationships with community organizations
Develop engaging post show events
Facilitate post show events
Create and facilitate a trauma informed group within the rehearsal room
Work with researchers to create an audience survey to collect data on the efficacy of the work to create meaningful change after engaging with it.
Artistic Director/Consultant
2ND ACT, Boston, MA
July 2021 - September 2023
Co-design the New Works Department.
Oversee the writing and development of recovery centered plays.
Educate writers and actors around areas of Substance Use Disorder, Prevention and Harm Reduction.
Give dramaturgical support for new and existing plays.
Create a trauma informed writer’s room where writers feel safe to be brave.
Teaching Artist
IMPROBABLE PLAYERS, Watertown, MA
July 2014 - July 2020
Perform in plays on prevention and education around Substance Use Disorder.
Lead acting workshops that utilize the art of play to address issues around SUD.
Facilitate conversations with audience members and various communities around SUD.
Theatrical Works
In Between…
Composer, Lyricist and Librettist, Music Director, Accompanist and Producer
CHASING GRACE
Composer, Lyricist, Librettist, Director and Producer
THIS IS TREATMENT
Composer, Lyricist, Librettist, Music Director, Director, Accompanist and Producer
F**k! Now what?!
Composer, Lyricist, Librettist, Music Director, Performer, Accompanist and Producer
UPCOMING PRODUCTION
Off Broadway run of Chasing Grace with SheNYC in 2025/2026
PRODUCTION HISTORY
In Between…
Industry Reading May 2024/Sept. 2025 Open Jar Studios
Concert October 2023 54 Below
CHASING GRACE
SheNYC Summer Festival July 2023 Connelly Theatre
Presentation Concert May 2022 Jag Productions
THIS IS TREATMENT
Full Production April 2022 Northeastern University
Virtual run Jan. 2021 Rider University
Concert March 13th 2018 Feinstein’s 54 Below, NYC
Concert September 2017 The Space, Jamaica Plain
NYC Presentations April 2017 Pearl Studios, NYC
Concert December 2017 ACA, Arlington
Workshop May 2016 Dance Complex, Cambridge
Reading May 2015 Right Turn, Arlington
Workshop November 2014 Dance Complex, Cambridge
Presentation April 2014 Dimock, Roxbury
Presentation February 2014 Dance Complex, Cambridge
F**k! Now What?!
Reading November 2018 Dorchester Arts Project, Boston
PLAYS
My name is Hope Jones
Stages of Change
Pathways
GRANT/AWARDS
The a Boston Foundation Lab grant 2024/25
Chasing Grace, Best New Musical, Best Director and Best Lead Actress at SheNYC Summer Festival
The Boston Foundation LAB grant 2018
Boston Opportunity Fund 2017
Bob Jolly Grant 2017
FELLOWSHIP/MENTORSHIP/
OBSERVERSHIP
MAESTRA Spring 2023
DEAR EVAN HANSEN DEC 2021
MUSE JUNE 2021-DEC 2021
Playwright Fellow in Company One Playlab January 2015-June 2015
TRAINING
BMI Basics of Book Writing
FreeStyle Love Supreme Fundamentals of Freestyling Ars Nova
Gloria Weinstock Acting I, II, Character Development/Scene Study & Improv CCSF
Mark Lee Voice