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Barbara Stone Hollander '60 Lecture in Women's Leadership featuring Elise Robertson in a One-Woman Show about Rachel Carson

Thank you for your interest in attending the 2024 Spring Hollander Lecture with Elise Robertson! Due to the overwhelming response to this event, we have reached capacity.

Please join us for a Pre-Lecture Reception at 6:00 p.m. and a One-Woman Show about Rachel Carson featuring Elise Robertson at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 19, 2024.

Understanding Rachel, Explore Silent Spring author Rachel Carson’s nature in this wildly inventive lecture/performance by fellow Pittsburgher Elise Robertson, who inhabits multiple characters and uses found objects and visual imagery to interweave her own messy coming-of-age with Rachel’s, as they struggle with their identities as artists, mothers, and truth-tellers.

Elise Robertson, was born (60 years later) just a few miles from where Rachel Carson also grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and developed a similar love for nature exploring the same woods and streams. She graduated from Northwestern University's theatre department with concentrations in performance studies and fine art.

As a writer/director, Elise is known for her dramatic adaptations of literary works for PBS, including Peabody-nominated Ralph Ellison's King of the Bingo Game, and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Sensible Thing. In 2019 she directed the award-winning short film Darling, Darling, Wendy, a dark reimagining of the Peter Pan story from Wendy's perspective, which has screened all over the world.

As an actor, Elise has 100+ film, tv and commercial acting credits, including Academy Award nominee American Sniper, NCIS, This Is Us and many more. She is currently recurring on Amazon Studios' The Power and Freeform's Good Trouble. Elise loves a good story, and believes that the worlds we imagine have the power to transform the one we live in. A mother of two girls, she hopes to create content that is inclusive, inspiring and female-positive. Imagining Rachel is her first foray into solo performance.

For more information about the lecture and award, visit Barbara Stone Hollander '60 Women's Leadership Lecture and Award!