HOW LOSS SPARKED LOVE
And Out Of Grief Came Art
Elizabeth Coplan is a 40+ year marketing and public relations veteran whose career began as a struggling actor in New York City in 1972. After realizing that she could either eat or pay rent but not both, Elizabeth completed college and then became the managing editor of Chief Executive Magazine in New York. She later moved to California where, for the next six years, she worked her way from technical writer to Director of Corporate Communications for Collins Foods International, a Fortune 500 company in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth’s next career move was to Seattle, Washington. Considered one of the pioneers in professional services marketing by the Puget Sound Business Journal, Elizabeth served as the first Northwest marketing director for the Big 8 accounting firm Touché Ross (now Deloitte), followed by a position as the Director of Client Service and Development for the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. When Elizabeth joined Davis Wright, the firm had three offices. Six years later the firm had expanded to 10 offices across the country. During this time, Elizabeth developed the concept of strategic sponsorships for law firms, and Davis Wright was rated the most respected law firm in the Pacific Northwest the year she left to start her own consulting firm.
For the next 20+ years Elizabeth advised clients such as Merrill Lynch, Green Diamond Resource Company, Laird Norton Wealth Management, and the University of Washington School of Law. Elizabeth also served on several boards in the Seattle area including the founding board of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and on the Intiman Theatre board where she served as Strategic Planning Chair.
After tragedy struck in 2013, Elizabeth turned to writing to express her personal grief. She wrote many published essays, and later, after experiencing three losses in less than a year, she turned to writing plays focused on this global experience known as death. In 2016, Elizabeth developed the groundbreaking play, Grief Dialogues, and built the nonprofit Grief Dialogues, a theatrical movement creating new conversations about dying, death, and grief.
Her other playwriting credits include the award-winning Hospice: A Love Story, as well as Untold, Independence Day, and The Choice which she co-wrote with her husband, Scott.
Her stage play, Honoring Choices, commissioned by Honoring Choices PNW, has had numerous performances since 2020. The universality of the story lent itself to successful productions with BIPOC and multilingual casts. In 2022, due to demand for performances, development began on a film with Elizabeth writing the screenplay. The world premiere took place in Leimert Park, Los Angeles at the Reimagine: Life, Loss, Love Conference September 2022. It is an official selection of the Legacy Film Festival on Aging and won awards at the Doc Without Borders International Film Festival, International Film Arts and Hearts Film Festival, and the Awareness Film Festival. Honoring Choices is now available for licensing.
Elizabeth is the script consultant, director, and producer for Juntos Nos Ayudamos/Better Together, a film about a Hispanic family surviving suicide. She is also the creator and the co-host of the podcast, Out of Grief Comes Art, and the Executive Producer of 8 AM, an award-winning short film on traumatic loss.
Elizabeth is a published essayist. Her research and interviews form a chapter titled Out of Grief Comes Art in the upcoming book Seasons of Grief: Creative Interventions to Support Bereaved People, edited by Claudia Coenen, CGC, FT, MTP and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Previously her research is found in the chapter Grief Dialogues — Using Theatre in Grief Therapy, published in New Techniques of Grief Therapy, Bereavement and Beyond, edited by Dr. Robert A. Neimeyer, Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.
’Til Death, Elizabeth’s full-length play about one mother’s choice that unveils a family’s long-buried secrets, opened Off-Broadway in November 2023 under the direction of Chad Austin, Producing Director of the Abingdon Theatre. The play starred Two-Time Tony Award Winner Judy Kaye, Tony Award Nominee Robert Cuccioli, with Whitney Morse, Dominick LaRuffa Jr., Michael Lee Brown, TV and film star Amy Hargreaves.
In addition to an updated production of Grief Dialogues scheduled to open in New York City 2024, Elizabeth is currently working on The Book Club, a new play highlighting the lives of five senior women.
Using theatre to start new conversations about dying, death, and grief
now known as Over My Dead Body
Her early love of theatre pivoted to playwriting when her first play, the award-winning Hospice: A Love Story was performed in Seattle, WA; Sedona, AZ; in LA at The Group Rep, and in the UK.
GRIEF DIALOGUES: THE BOOK
Elizabeth is a published author with essays in numerous anthologies and is the editor of Grief Dialogues: The Book, a finalist for the 2019 Pacific Northwest Book Award.
As of 2022, Grief Dialogues: The Book is sold out.
Grief Dialogues | PLAY
Grief Dialogues: The Play opened the Seattle Death Salon in September 2017. In June 2018, the original cast performed the show in the Seattle area to sold out crowds.
Since then, the play, or a portion of the play, has been performed in New York for the Dramatists Guild National Conference, and in Las Vegas (to honor the First Responders on the anniversary for the Las Vegas shooting), and in Portland, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Los Angeles and in the UK, as well virtually as performed for Reimagine: Life, Loss, Love.
UNTOLD | PLAY
UW Center for Health Sciences, 2020
Elizabeth produced the Overcoming Womxn Play Festival in Seattle 2019 where she debuted her short play Untold. Untold has since been performed for the University of Washington Center for Health Sciences, for Reimagine, and at the Beautiful Dying Expo in 2020.
Honoring Choices | Play & Film
Honoring Choices PNW commissioned Elizabeth to write the play Honoring Choices for a live performance in February 2020.
Since the COVID 19 shutdown, Honoring Choices has been performed on Zoom numerous times with three different casts including an all African-American cast and a Latinx cast (in Spanish).
Since then, the play, or a portion of the play, has been performed in New York for the Dramatists Guild National Conference, and in Las Vegas (to honor the First Responders on the anniversary for the Las Vegas shooting), and in Portland, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Los Angeles and in the UK, as well virtually performed for Reimagine: Life, Loss, Love.
In 2022, Grief Dialogues, Elizabeth’s Seattle-based artistic nonprofit, announced a new collaboration with The Reimagine network to sponsor the production of the film, Honoring Choices. Filming wrapped in New York in April and is scheduled to premier Summer 2022. The film encourages families to consider planning now, when there’s still time, and advocates for normalizing household conversations that reveal end-of-life wishes.
INDEPENDENCE DAY | PLAY
8 am | FILM
Elizabeth is the Executive Producer of the film 8 AM, based on the play by Mark Harvey Levine. 8 AM won several awards for selection including the Seattle International Film Festival, Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, Anchorage Film Festival, Byron Bay Festival (Australia), Cleveland International Film Festival, and YES Film Festival in Columbus, IN.
FEATURED
Even before becoming a playwright and producer, Elizabeth never lost her early love of theatre. She is a financial patron of Seattle Theatre and a former board member of the Intiman where she served as the Strategic Planning Chair.
