Playwrights

Nakkiah Lui

Representative Plays:

Black is the New White (2019)

Bio:

Nakkiah Lui is a writer for theatre and TV and proud Gamillaroi and Torres Strait Islander woman from Mount Druitt, western Sydney. She is an associate playwright in residence at Belvoir and a 2013 artist in residence at Griffin Theatre under the emerging cultural leader program. In 2012, Nakkiah was the inaugural recipient of The Dreaming Award from The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Arts Board of the Australia Council, and the inaugural recipient of the Balnaves Foundation...

Shishir Kurup

Representative Plays:

Assimilation (2002)

Exile: Ruminations on a Reluctant Martyr (1992)

Bio:

Shishir Kurup, is an actor/writer/director/composer and Books-On-Tape narrator born in Bombay, India raised in Mombasa, Kenya and the U.S. His one-man shows "Assimilation" and "Exile: Ruminations on a Reluctant Martyr" (the latter a commission from Highways Performance Space) have been seen in countless cities and universities nationally and internationally including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, London and Manchester,...

Yvette Nolan

Representative Plays:

The Unplugging (2015)

Annie Mae’s Movement (2001)

BLADE (1990)

Bio:

Playwright, director, dramaturg, actor, and educator, Yvette Nolan has contributed substantively to the creation and performance of First Nations Theatre in Canada. She was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan...

Michelle Law

Representative Plays:

Single Asian Female (2017)

Bio:

Michelle Law is a writer working across print, screen and stage. She is the co-author of the comedy book Sh*t Asian Mothers Say, and has had her work anthologised in books like Women of Letters and Best Australian Comedy Writing. She is a regular contributor to Australian literary journals and magazines, and has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Life, Frankie magazine and the Griffith Review. As a screenwriter, she’s received an AWGIE award for her interactive media...

Lloyd Suh

Representative Plays:

The Chinese Lady (2019)

Bio:

Lloyd Suh is the author of The Chinese Lady, Charles Francis Chan Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery, American Hwangap, The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!, Jesus in India, and others, produced with Ma-Yi, Magic Theatre, EST, NAATCO, PlayCo, Denver Center, Milwaukee Rep, ArtsEmerson, Children's Theatre Co, and more, including internationally at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and with PCPA in Seoul, Korea. He has received...

Star Finch

Representative Plays:

Bondage (2018)
H.O.M.E. (Hookers On Mars Eventually) (2017)
Participants/Take the Ticket (2016)

Bio:

Star Finch is a native San Franciscan trying her best to hold ground amidst the Black-erasure of gentrification. She is currently the Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Campo Santo and Crowded Fire Theater. She’s also a resident playwright at Playwrights Foundation. Finch’s plays include H.O.M.E. [Hookers on Mars Eventually]and BONDAGE (Relentless Award honorable...

Rey Pamatmat

Representative Plays:

House Rules (2016)
Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (2012)

Bio:

Rey Pamatmat is a celebrated Filipino-American gay playwright from Port Huron, Michigan. He grew up acting in a local community theater, surrounded by few peers who looked like him. Influenced by Tony Kushner, Maria Irene Fornes, and August Wilson, Pamatmat has been the Co-Director of the Ma-Yi’s Writers Lab since 2004, the nation’s largest collective of Asian-American playwrights. His play Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit...

Sean San José

Representative Plays:

Monstress (2015)
Superheroes (2014)

About the Playwright:

Sean San José is co-founder of Campo Santo, the award-winning resident theater company of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts. Program Director of Theatre for Intersection for the Arts, San José has helped create and curate a new program called the Hybrid Project, formed to bring together artists of all genres, merging differing and emerging styles of performance in order to find a new performance language. He also conceived the theater...

Jalisa Leelee Jackson

Representative Plays:

Comb Your Hair (Or You'll Look Like a Slave) (2017)

About the Playwright:

Jalisa "Leelee" Jackson’s ​ work aligns itself with the lives of Black womxn postmodernity and sets out to both challenge and entertain theatre goers to better understand micro and macro aggression towards and within marginalized people groups of the African diaspora. In 2017, her play ​Comb Your Hair (Or You'll Look Like a Slave)​ was honoured and performed at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival national competition. Jalisa “...

Torange Yeghiazarian

Representative Plays:

Isfahan Blues (2015)

The Fifth String: Ziryab’s Passage to Cordoba (2014)

444 Days (2013)

Bio:

Torange Yeghiazarian(she/her) is the Founding Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company focused on the Middle East where she launched such visionary programs as ReOrient Festival, New Threads, Fairytale Players, and What do the Women Say?, and timely initiatives such as Islam 101 and Project Alo? Torange has been...