Lanny Harrison, character actress, dancer and cabaret artist, began her career in the New York Pantomime Theater in 1966. She has played character roles in Off-Broadway musicals and films and, for the past 30 years has written and performed one-woman shows, touring America and Europe. Her latest, ISBA, premiered at La MaMa ETC. in 2008. Ms. Harrison has performed a number of theatrical duets, including Cooking Up a Storm , with her late husband, musician Collin Walcott; Acts from Under and Above with Meredith Monk; Sense and Nonsense with Steve Clorfeine and Act Without Words II by Samuel Beckett also with Mr. Clorfeine. Ms. Harrison and Lily Pink have presented their vaudeville show, The Bat Sisters , at various venues in NYC and in upstate NY. Ms Harrsion has been a member of The House, Meredith Monk's theater company, since 1969, and has played leading roles in many of Ms. Monk's productions, most recently Mercy and a revival of Quarry at the Spoleto Festival. She is also a member of Cocktail Caberet, with director Pablo Vela, Lily Pink and Allison Sniffin. Currently Ms Harrison is at work on a show about her mother’s and godmother’s hitch-hike across the States in 1929. Ms. Harrison teaches acting for children upstate at the West Kortright Centre and in the Arts in Education Program. She has an ongoing workshop at the NY Shambhala Center and has taught at Naropa University for many years. Since 2000, she has been a member of the Shambhala Arts team at the Shambhala Institute in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At Gallatin Ms. Harrison teaches a theater course integrating Eastern contemplative disciplines and Western theatrical technique. Since 1973, she has practiced Tibetan Buddhism as a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is certified as a meditation instructor.
