Meet the Playwrights
10 Minute Play Festival
Taylor Blackman
Taylor Blackman (he/him) is a Brooklyn based multi-hyphenate. As an actor, Taylor recently finished the First National Tour of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical . He has also performed with Roundabout Theatre Company, The Movement Theatre Company, The Public Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and New York Stage & Film. Taylor can also be seen on Comedy Central’s “Alternatino” and on CBS’ “FBI”. As a playwright, he is currently under commission with Ensemble Studio Theatre & Roberta P Sloan to create a new scientific play. He has also held residency with Hi-ARTS Harlem to develop new works, as well creatively produced readings and workshops of his own work. Taylor recently served as the movement director for a recent production of Sweet Chariot that premiered at The Public Theatre’s Under The Radar Festival. He holds a professorship with the New School in the Theatre Department. Taylor is currently working on a new play titled Hero, created by Shariffa Ali and Vuyo Sotashe.
Kamilah Bush
Kamilah Bush is a playwright, dramaturg and educator originally from North Carolina. She holds a BFA in Theater Education from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Kamilah has spent several years working in celebrated regional theaters across the country, including Triad Stage in North Carolina, Asolo Repertory Theater in Florida and Two River Theater in New Jersey. She currently holds the position of Literary Manager at Portland Center Stage in Portland, OR. Her play NICK & THE PRIZEFIGHTER was a semifinalist in the 2021 Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, the 2022 L. Arnold Weissberger Award and the 2023 Princess Grace Award, and won the 2021 Urbanite Theater Modern Works Festival.
leelee Jackson
Leelee Jackson (she/her/Leelee) is a playwright whose work centers modern narratives of Black and queer womxnhood. Her one act play Comb Your Hair (Or You'll Look Like a Slave) was honored as a John Cauable national finalist and performed in 2016 at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Her full length play The House Across the Street was honored at the 2019 Austin Film Festival where it was a national finalist and received a public reading. Currently, she is committed to building community amongst Black artists with Black Light Arts Collective (BLAC) a nonprofit she founded and currently serves as artistic director. Jackson is a Bay Area native and a 2019 MFA graduate of the University of California, Riverside.
Monique Pappas-WIlliams
Monique Pappas-Williams is a native of New Orleans. In addition to writing, she has many television, film, and theater credits. A short film she wrote and produced entitled Game Night was selected for the 2020 New York Lift-Off Film Festival. Her creative piece debuted as part of a collaboration in the Off-Broadway Billie Holiday Theater’s 2020 Love In the Time of Corona. Most recently, Monique wrote and produced Crescent City Rebirth, developed at Primary Stages ESPA,and won a spot in Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival. Monique has an MFA from Brooklyn College. She is a proud member of AEA and SAG.
Nia Akilah Robinson
Nia Akilah Robinson (she/her) is a playwright and actor who reps Harlem with all her might. She is a graduating second year playwright at The Juilliard School. Nia has been awarded the 2023 Miranda Family Fund Commission, 48th OOB Festival, New York Stage & Film Artist-In-Residence , National Black Theatre Soul Series, Residency at The Pocantico Center through YoungArts, NYSCA Grant Awardee (CCCADI), Film & TV Mentorship by Mitzi Miller (VP of Warner Bros. Entertainment). Nia is shortlisted for the 2023 Theatre503's International Playwriting Award. Her work has been seen and developed with The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep, GPTC, SPACE on Ryder Farm, EST, Waterwell, Classical Theater of Harlem, Urbanite, and New Georges. She has been a MacDowell & Travis Bogard Eugene O'Neill Foundation Fellow. She was a finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Blue Ink Playwriting Award, and NYTW 2050 Artistic Fellowship. She is a member or alumna of EST's Youngblood, I-73 at Page 73, The Orchard Project, The Wish Collective, and TheBlackHERthePen. www.niaakilahrobinson.com
Joël Renė Scoville
Joël Renė Scoville is a Black Mormon (yes, really), actress, writer, librettist and lyricist. Her musical 2&1: A Harlem Musical with Loose Morals with composer Jenna Byrd, about queer women during the Harlem Renaissance, is a 2023 Eugene O’Neill Finalist, a 2022 Relentless Musical Award Honorable Mention and received a reading at UNTITLED Musical Project. Her musical Flophouse with co-writer Justin Anthony Long and composer Joanna Burns is a 2023 Rhinebeck Finalist. She wrote and starred in the web series, Crazy with a K! and is a co-writer on an upcoming project for AfterShock Comics. She is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, The Dramatists Guild of America, Actors’ Equity Association and a founding member of the UNTITLED Musical Writers Group. She loves Agatha Christie, Batman and Star Wars: The Force Awakens; much to the chagrin of her three sons and her husband…who she married three times. (Yes, really.)