Also known for her exceptional poetic skills, Liza began her poetry career at the famed Nuyorican Poets Café in the mid-90’s and was a vital member of the enclave of notable poets who were part of the “underground slam poetry/spoken word” movement before it attracted television cameras and became a national obsession. It was this electric group of artists that inspired Russell Simmons to bring “spoken word/slam poetry” to HBO where Liza appeared on two episodes of Def Poetry. She has shared the stage with luminaries such as Nona Hendryx, Toshi Reagon, Amiri Baraka, The Last Poets, Craig Harris, Vernon Reid, Rakim, Carl Hancock Rux and Sandra St. Victor to name just a few.

As an actress Liza appeared in several feature films: Love the Hard Way (costarring with Pam Grier and Academy Award winner Adrien Brody), Spike Lee’s, Bamboozled, K. Shalini’s, A Drop of Life, (co-starring with Nandita Das which was filmed in Mumbai India), and Jamie Catto’s, One Giant Leap/What About Me, where she was featured and interviewed along with Tim Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Noam Chomsky and others.

Liza has taught theater and poetry to urban and incarcerated youth for more than 15 years and counting. She created and developed The Urban Folktale Project, where her students created original plays based on their most pressing issues and performed it at several theaters around New York City. The project was so successful that it received a grant from Russell Simmons’ Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. The Urban Folktale Project has successfully produced three plays. Liza remains steadfastly committed to this population of youth (both at Rikers Island and at community based programs) where she has discovered inspiration and light in a dark place.

As the former Chief of External Affairs for the Department, Sheriff Tompkins supervised his own division and was a member of his predecessor’s nine-person Executive Team, which was responsible for the day-to-day management of all Sheriff’s Department operations. He created the innovative “Common Ground Institute,” a vocational training and re-entry program that teaches vocational skills in a classroom setting; and he also created the “Choice Program,” which sends trained officers into the schools of Boston, Chelsea, Winthrop, and Revere to help young people see they can make positive choices for future success, as well as reinforcing the theme of respect for oneself and others.

Sheriff Tompkins is an engaged community leader and serves with the following organizations:

• Chair of the Advisory Board of Roca, Inc.
• Trustee of Roxbury Community College
• Board Member of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation
• the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which focuses on issues that affect young men of color
• the Boston Private Industry Council.

Sheriff Tompkins served as former Board Chair of the Sportsman’s Tennis Club and as a former member of the Board for City Year Boston.

Sheriff Tompkins is a past-President of the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association, a group comprised of all 14 Massachusetts Sheriffs that addresses numerous issues that have a direct impact on the entire criminal justice system. Sheriff Tompkins holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Boston College and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Massachusetts. He completed the LeadBoston program in 2004, is an alumnus of the Executive Session on Community Corrections at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a current member of the Emerging Adult Justice Learning Community at Columbia University. He and his family live in Boston.

 

Lizzy was the Facilitation Trainer for Anna Deavere Smith's "Notes From the Field: Doing Time in Education" at the American Repertory Theater and a facilitator for the community engagement initiative for Claudia Rankine's play "The White Card" at ArtsEmerson. She also works as a consultant on black cultural history and arts- and values-based organizing with the Urban Bush Women and is a mentor for Live Arts Boston, a project of the Boston Foundation supporting Boston-area performing artists, presenters, and producers.

Lizzy has performed nationally as an actor in such theaters as Second Stage, The Public Theater, The Long Wharf, Berkeley Rep, and The American Repertory Theater and with such directors as Liesl Tommy, Anne Bogart, and Mary Zimmerman. She has also worked in television, film, and radio. Lizzy co-edited Enacting Pleasure: Artists and Scholars Respond to Carol Gilligan's Map of Love (2010), her work on the freedom songs of the civil rights movement appeared in the roots music journal No Depression, and she is contributing a chapter on the Free Southern Theater's Story Circle methodology for the forthcoming volume Discussing Democracy: A Primer on Dialogue and Deliberation in Higher Education (Stylus, 2019).