Black Women in Theater

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03/16/21 • 61 min

Discussion with rising Black Women Playwrights a.k. Payne & Abigail Onwunali about their work and the future of Black Theater.

Abigail C. Onwunali (she/her/hers)- Actor/Poet/Writer. Abigail is a second-year
MFA Acting student at the Yale School of Drama. In undergrad, at the University of Texas at Austin, she is one of the most accomplished performers in the history of forensics, having won 13 collegiate national titles across four different interpretation categories over her 4 year career. She has been a sacrificial poet for many events including Texas Grand Slam and Slam Mania hosted by Write About Now.

a.k. payne (she/they) is a playwright, artist-theorist and theatermaker whose people
are rooted in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her plays love on and engage the interdependencies of Black pasts, presents and futures and seek to find/remember
language that might move us towards our collective liberation(s). She holds a B.A. in
English and African-American Studies from Yale College and is currently pursuing an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama. akpayne.com

Discussion with rising Black Women Playwrights a.k. Payne & Abigail Onwunali about their work and the future of Black Theater.

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Hip Hop Studies & Activism

Dr. Don C. Sawyer III is the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He is a tenured associate professor in the department of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences and assistant clinical professor in the Frank H. Netter, MD, School of Medicine. He teaches courses on Race, Education, Popular Culture, and Social Research Methods, including the university’s first course dedicated to the sociological study of hip-hop culture. His scholarly focus is on race, social justice, urban education, hip-hop culture, and formerly incarcerated citizens’ reentry experiences. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology and M.S. in Cultural Foundations of Education from Syracuse University and a B.A. in Psychology from Hartwick College.

Dr. Sawyer has served in various capacities as a university administrator. With over 20 years of higher education experience, he has held positions in residence life, admissions, multicultural affairs, fraternity and sorority affairs, student activities, experiential learning, student leadership, and STEM retention. Throughout his career, he has worked diligently to nurture healthy relationships between academic and student affairs. He understands that collaborative partnerships create an environment conducive to the successful recruitment, retention, education, and graduation of civically engaged students.

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Stacy Graham-Hunt, a New Haven native, is an author and award-winning columnist, honored by the National Association of Black Journalists for her stories about race and identity. She is passionate about Black people telling their own stories and preserving their own history. She's shared her own stories about overcoming failed relationships, humiliation and shame on her blog, ProcessingPain.com, which she later published as a book, Processing Pain.

Stacy is the membership director for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and has also worked in marketing and community engagement roles for Bad Boy Records, MTV, Morgan Stanley and General Motors. She is also a licensed cosmetologist in the State of Connecticut.

You can find Stacy's articles about her family, the arts, culture and growing up as a young Black woman in predominantly white spaces syndicated in 5 major Hearst-owned newspapers throughout the state, including the New Haven Register and the Connecticut Post.

A boy-mom with two sons, Stacy is a graduate of Hopkins School, has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Southern Connecticut State University and a master’s degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. She is also an alumna of Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University.

Follow her on social media @stacyreports, and to receive a free electronic copy of her book "Processing Pain, send her an email at [email protected].