Sola Bamis is an LA-based actress in television, film, and theatre, as well as a voiceover artist. Born and raised in Miami, FL to Nigerian immigrant parents, she worked to be a doctor, receiving her BA in Chemistry from the University of Miami. It was during her senior year when she realized that possessing the healing powers of an artist suited her much better, and, after completing her degree at UM, Sola went on to receive her MFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts.
She most recently appeared in a recurring role as Shirley, the unabashed, minidress-wearing, fro-toting secretary on the final season of the Emmy Award-winning series, Mad Men, and will recur as the medical technician, Ayo, on ABC Family’s new summer show, Stitchers. Other television credits include Killer Women and Mistresses on ABC, Perception on TNT, and Jane By Design on ABC Family. In addition, she’s lent her voice talents to radio and television commercials, as well as some video games.
Sola’s theater credits include Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye, for which she received an NAACP Theatre Award nomination for Best Lead Actress, Gail in the Robey Theatre Company’s production of The River Niger (NAACP Theatre Award nomination for best ensemble), the Provost in Measure for Measure (CalArts), Ariel in The Tempest (Santa Monica Rep), and the Lady in Red in for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (University of Miami). She also was an understudy in the 2012 season of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, participated in A Guthrie Experience at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, MN, and has had the honor of working with Fran Bennett in In The Blood (Amiga Gringa/Beauty) by Suzan Lori-Parks, Laurie Carlos in the world premiere of Forgotten World (Voice), and Ron Cephas Jones in a staged reading of The Overwhelming (Emeritha).
Sola thanks her wonderful family and friends for their love and support, enjoys all things beauty and fashion, and will do almost anything for a bag of Tropical Skittles…Try me!