Lola Lenore Louis was born in 1945 in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Her nurturing and training began in Scarborough, Tobago, where she studied and performed piano — the first steps of a life given to the stage and to the students she would one day teach.
She trained as an actress, director, singer, pianist, and ethnic folk dancer, and her performance experience reached far beyond New York and America to include Kenya and Egypt. She was a griot in the truest sense — a storyteller who carries a community's memory — and she brought that calling home to the Bronx.
Training
- American Academy of Dramatic Arts
- NYU Tisch School of the Arts
- Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting
- Associate Performance Diploma in Piano, Trinity College of Music, England
Honors
- AUDELCO Award nominee for lead and supporting actress in Black theater
- Achievement Award, Congress of Negro Women
- Cultural Contribution Award, Tobago Heritage Festival Committee
Her play, The Children's Legacy, was presented off-Broadway, at the Apollo Theatre, at the United Nations, at City Hall, and throughout New York City's public schools — putting seniors and students on one stage in an evening of movement, music, and griot storytelling.
Her teaching began at home. In 1976 she started giving piano lessons out of her own living room at Lowerre Place in the Northeast Bronx. That living-room studio grew, and in 1985 she founded Lola Louis' Creative and Performing Arts Studio (CAPAS), expanding beyond piano into voice, drama, dance, art, and musical theatre. In 1994, CAPAS was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.
As founder and director of CAPAS, she used theater and the creative arts as a medium to liberate and stimulate the minds of urban youth, in the hope that they would rise above “limitation thinking.” She provided the spark that awakened dormant talents in her students, launching them into experiences and possibilities beyond their own expectations.
She provided the spark that awakened dormant talents — launching students into possibilities beyond their own expectations.
Many CAPAS students moved on to high schools and colleges in pursuit of their dreams; others were launched into careers on the Broadway stage, in professional theater, movies, and television. Lola was always mindful that her God-given gifts were to be used in the service of others, and she always gave God the glory.
Lola Louis passed away in October 2023. What she built did not end with her — her mission is carried forward today by those she taught and inspired.