Originally from the East Coast, NJ and NYC, I started acting at a young age, theater and storytelling live deep in my roots. I love creating characters from the ground up, movement and body awareness as well as music have been important keys to taking on a character. I love a good back story and improv work to shape the whole being.
I have studied a range of techniques, from the more muscular Laban, Grotowski, but really feeling the depth in the simplicity of repetition work in Meisner to stay connected.
I continue to challenge myself in weekly workshops and love collaboration.
Email emily@devildoll.com Instagram @emilykeyishian
Moving to the West Coast was a big shift and after some time off to have kids, my boys are 11 and 14, I returned to acting and have been performing all over the Bay on the stage, online and film for the last 8 years.
I am Armenian from Turkey and Lebanon and Jewish from Galicia/Ukraine. I study Western Armenian (one of my native languages) in order to preserve our culture and heritage. They may have taken our land and our people but we live on in our language. ԲարԵ ՛ւ means hello!
The wonderful, amazing, inspiring teachers and coaches I have worked with in the Bay Area include Patrick Russell, Mia Tagano, Kari Prindl, Lauren English, Laura Wayth, Richard Seyd,
Frances Epsen-Devlin, Rebecca Castelli, and Meryl Shaw.
I have also worked with Faye Simpson at Lucid Body and Jim Calder, both from the NYU graduate program.
Currently working with a killer group of actors in our weekly professional workshop
hosted online by The BGB Studio in Los Angeles with the amazing Ashley Rideaux.
REVIEWS:
Emily, as the eccentric governess, caught the audience’s eye in every scene she was in. With a moving, gypsy flare, she captivated the on-stage characters with her displays of card tricks and ventriloquism. In a telling metaphor of Town Hall new and old, Emily’s hilarious scene at the end of Act 1 with Town Hall regular, Tom Reilly, was a perfect blending of casting. They proved that the Hegalian Dialectic Theory (Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis) can smooth out any transition, personal or societal. And we can use a card trick to demonstrate it.
Peter Petroski, critic at large (The Cherry Orchard)
A beautiful event. The whole event woke up some dormant brain cells for me, and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. Audience Member in Danville (The First Man)
..with lovely performances by Lauren Dunagan as Theresa, an actress fresh off a disturbing breakup
and Emily Keyishian as Marty, the serious acting teacher who will learn more
than she cares to over the course of the play..
Steve Murray, Broadway World (Circle Mirror Transformation)
It's risky enough for an actor to bare their soul on stage, so I imagine it's even more intimidating to take on the task of portraying an actor learning their craft through exercises in the safe space of a studio or classroom with no audience as witnesses. Improvisation is challenging enough on its own, so making scripted improvisation feel spontaneous must ratchet up the tension even higher.
Yet Eis's cast manages to pull it off. Even more impressive is that they do so while simultaneously inhabiting a character. How each cast member goes about the task of imagining how their character would be spontaneous (or hesitant and reserved) during the games that compose a great deal of the action on stage is the source of much of the pleasure of Circle Mirror Transformation.
Patrick Thomas, Talkin' Broadway (Circle Mirror Transformation)
A wonderful addition to the show was Emily Keyishian as the physically dexterous magician/entertainer Charlotta
Sally Hogarty, East Bay Times (The Cherry Orchard)
His fiancée Andie, on the other hand, is blithely unconcerned... saying just whatever she thinks to anyone without considering her audience at all. Played with amusing equanimity by Emily M. Keyishian.
-Sam Hurwitt The Mercury News (Honky)
"One poignant moment happens between Brooke (Emily Keyishian) and Trip (Micah Watterson) as they discuss the likely outcome of publishing, their own personal setbacks, and the pain surrounding the death of their brother. It can be hard to capture sibling chemistry, but Keyishian and Watterson are quite good. Aided by Jon Robin Baitz’s script, the two actors bring an almost wholesome and childlike essence to the moment. It’s an exchange of two confidants that foreshadows the finale."
-Sahar Yousefi Spinning Platters (Other Desert Cities)
"I never understood Ophelia until I saw this production"
"I usually don't like Ophelia- but I loved yours!"
"You were my favorite Ophelia"
(Audience response, Hamlet)
"We’re transplanted to a futuristic, hipster London. Here the cool kids are buying slaves from places like Bulgaria and Moldavia, using them for sexual gratification, and showing them off to friends at night clubs. When the women aren’t needed, they’re chained to fences. Remember that thing I mentioned about the unexpected, and it potentially stomping all over your comfort zone? Well, here you go. Provocative, indeed. 20 minutes of squirmish theater never felt so odd and well executed. Same too with the superb performances." Stark Insider (Turning Tricks, ReOrient festival)
“...Would the all-male team be able to cope with the exotic presence of Female Engineer (Emily Keyishian, in a quirky, understated performance that elevates her character from type to human being)?.." Lily Janiak, SF Chronicle (Adventures in Tech)
"Emily Keyishian, my favorite face to watch on stage, so funny and so tender" Stuart Bousel (Adventures in Tech)
"That’s for the audience to determine as the plot thickens, so to speak. And that’s when the only other person in this play shows up: the alluring, guarded Abby (beautifully understated performance by Emily Keyishian) who runs Drake Colony, a retreat where writers and would-be writers go to have the solitude and time to write." Mercury News (Fiction)
For paintings and more artwork, visit www.devildoll.com
