Liz Culley ’03
10th reunion
then Liz Culley, a California girl who stubbornly tried to wear flip-flops through the winter, came to Williston Northampton to get on the stage. “I was an insecure teenager who desperately wanted to sing and act and was too afraid to do it,” she says. She wrote her first song at Williston Northampton and performed it in the chapel. “I was terrified, legitimately shaking, about to throw up,” she says. “I got up with the jazz ensemble and I sang it. Later, I overheard kids humming and singing my song, and it was a crazy moment where I went, ‘Whoa, maybe this is something I should keep doing.’” Ms. Culley was also a proctor, which she says taught her responsibility. “I took it to heart and I took it really seriously,” she says. “Sometimes my feelings got hurt in the process and sometimes it was amazing to comfort a girl who was from half way around the country, and I could help her. It made me a stronger, more compassionate person.” now Ms. Culley is now a journalist, social media expert, singer and actor. She fronts a band called Liz and the Lifted, which recently opened for the band Furthur, which includes Phil Lesh and Bob Weir from The Grateful Dead. But she says she’s mostly focusing on “making movies.” She’s producing and starring in her first film, called Dog Years. “It’s a super funny, dark comedy about 29-year-olds who are struggling in the world,” she says. “The job market blows and our parents are saying, ‘Wait, you went to an Ivy League school, get it together.’” Ms. Culley is a branded content producer at Myspace and lives in West Hollywood, soaking up the sun, and paddle boarding in Malibu. “Malibu is the promised land,” she says.
spring 2013 Bulletin 25