Every week when I refill my Metrocard, the MTA gives me the option to "ADD TIME" or "ADD VALUE". Time is not ours to negotiate. It is ever fleeting, moving forward with or without our full presence. But value? That is completely up to me.
2019 is a year for adding value. Vaulable work. Valuable play. Valuable love. Valuable art. Valuable activism. This year begins in residency at one of my beloved NYC theatre institutions-National Black Theatre-as a playwright, is punctuated mid year by dope acting work at Alabama Shakespeare festival in a new play and a decades long favorite, and ends with a production of one of my own plays in Atlanta...all of which can be found on my 'Sup? page as it begins to unfold.
Actor Resume
AEA - SAG - AFTRA
Playwright Resume
As the only child of the first Black family (replete with a facade of the Cosby Show and a reality more similar to Breaking Vegas meets Breaking Bad, but you know... Black) to move into our charming, colorless suburb, my fascination with human relationship dynamics and cultural identity developed early. It's the foundation upon which I write and seek to inform my acting work...exploring how people function and thrive despite the absence of a tied-in-a-neat-little-bow reality.
I had no choice but to be an artist, to make manifest my own questions, challenges and passions about the human condition. I sing. Sure. I dance. Yes. But at my core I am an actor/storyteller. Making pretty sounds is not enough for me. I need to weave a cohesive tale. It's when I'm at my best...and my happiest.
Acting highlights include Carbonell, NAACP and Barrymore Award winning work at regional theaters across the country including Yale Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Denver Center, Baltimore Centerstage, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Detroit Public Theatre, St. Louis Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse and 50+ others. In New York I opened the original Off Broadway companies of family hit Sistas (available on Netflix) and the critically raved (and Conan O'Brien spoofed) Bedbugs!!! It's A Musical. I've also toured in national productions and abroad in Europe and Asia. Independent film roles include a film festival Audience Award for Best Lead Actress. Television work includes roles on The Path, SMASH, Ed, L&O: Criminal Intent, All My Children and Guiding Light.
As a playwright 2018 began with a development workshop production of my full length, Rabbit Summer, in the National New Play Network's Women's Voices Festival in DC, produced by Ally Theatre Company. In the spring I began work, with my collaborator, Nehemiah Luckett, on the score for our new musical. By summer I had earned my MFA in "Writing For the Stage & Screen" and in the fall became a finalist for the prestigious Princess Grace award (I did not win, but dammit, I don't know how to play horseshoes...this counts)! By year's end I had closed a searing production of Lynn Nottage's SWEAT and began my playwright residency with National Black Theatre. So many things lined up in 2018 to make 2019 a big, fat bucket of "new". This year's value is all built into that new. And I'm here for it!
If you've gotten this far, I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU for your interest. For a technological dinosaur like myself, maintaining this website can be harrowing!! I appreciate you scouring over my efforts. Let me make it easier on ya:
For a more inclusive list of credits, print my resumes above. And for news on what's forthcoming, click "'Sup?"