Biography

Since her first job as a drive-thru girl at Winstead’s in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, queer artist Eliza Gibson has aspired to live a multiple career life. Playing the piano was her first love and her entry into exploring and understanding imagination, emotion and composition. Her dreams of being a professional pianist were thwarted by injury in her early twenties and her focus shifted to humanitarian aid work in the former Yugoslavia, and eventually, clinical social work. Her work with refugees, homeless youth and adults in community-based and psychiatric settings have informed both her writing, acting and directing. 

Eliza wrote and performed her first solo show, Dialogues with Madwomen, in 1995, and wrote the narrative for Memories Do No Burn, a 1997 documentary about war orphans and refugees featuring the voice of Sarah Jessica Parker. In 2008 Eliza led the start-up for Clinic by the Bay, a free health clinic for working uninsured adults in San Francisco, where she served as Executive Director until 2015. Since then she has worked in sales at a virtual healthcare company, which may or may not have provided inspiration for her solo show that was picked up for a run at The Marsh theater in San Francisco in 2018: BRAVO 25: Your A.I. Therapist Will See You Now. Her award-winning solo shows have been praised as “touching, hilarious and thought-provoking.” 

Eliza began studying the art of screenwriting several years ago. Her scripts have been Stowe Story Lab selected projects and she has participated in Stowe’s Narrative Lab, Writers’ Retreat as well as The Writers Room. Her scripts also have placed in competitions with Screencraft, Austin Film Festival and CineStory Foundation. Eliza made her first short film "Symptoms" in 2025 and as a companion piece to her comedy series all about the world of making it to menopause - "The Final Countdown."

As a fledgling sousaphone player, it’s a dream come true for Eliza that she’s a member of the Hollywood Highsteppers, occasionally delivering unexpected joy to strangers in the streets of Los Angeles.