Tarell Alvin McCraney

To download a Q&A with Tarell click here

Plays include THE BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS: The Brothers Size (Studio Theater, Washington DC 2008, The Public Theater New York, The Abbey Theatre Dublin, produced with the Foundry Theatre, the McCarter Theatre Princeton, NJ, the Young Vic Theatre London, Barcelona 2008 produced with ATC London directed by Bijan Sheibani); In The Red and Brown Water (winner of the 2007 Kendeda Award, premiered Feb 2008, Alliance Theatre Atlanta, GA, directed by Tina Landau); and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet. All three plays are currently under option at the Young Vic Theatre in London. Other plays: The Breach (Southern Rep Theater, New Orleans 2007, Seattle Rep Theatre 2008), Wig Out! (Sundance Summer Theater Institute), Without/Sin (Yale Cabaret 2005), Run Mother, Run (Yale Cabaret 2005), A Taurian Tale (52nd Street Project 2008), Promise Not to Tell (New World School of the Arts Playwrights Festival 2007).

Tarell has directed the Young Person's Hamlet for the RSC which has toured 10 London schools and which opened in The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in May 2010. In January he was invited to join the Steppenwolf company in Chicago to collaborate with them on a new play on the Book of Job

Tuesday 15 to Friday 25 June 2010 Tarell will be holding a 10 day workshop for writers at the CAPITAL Centre.

Tarell proposes to bring together up to ten people with scripts they want to work on in an open forum. Each will get a day to try out therir work with the grop with talk backs at the end of each day. On the last day Tarell will work with the group on a new piece of his own.

Participants are asked to committ time to attend the whole workshop which will probably run from 12 noon to 6pm each weekday. If you are interested please send a 500 word piece saying why you would like to take part to CAPITAL@warwick.ac.uk by 5pm Wednesday 9 June.

Tarell has led a one-week workshop exploring King John and the Play/Read Club on Thursday evenings (25 February, 4 and 11 March) 6-8pm in the Writers' Room and offered office hours for writing consultations 12-5pm on Thursday afternoons to which everyone is welcome

Tarell Alvin McCraney
Image: Deana Lawson.

Tarell graduated from the New World School of the Arts High School with the exemplary Artist award and the Dean's Award in Theatre in 1999, matriculated into the Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago graduating with the Sarah Siddons Award and a BFA in Acting 2003. Attended the British American Drama Academy (BADA) mid-summer at Oxford studying Shakespeare with master actors and teachers from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and around the UK. Masters Degree from the Yale School of Drama in playwriting 2007; receiving the Cole Porter Award upon graduating.

Tarell was recently honoured with the 2007 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from the Vineyard Theater and a 2007 Whiting Writing Award. The Young Vic production of The Brothers Size was nominated for an Outstanding Achievement by an Affiliate Theatre Olivier Award this past year in London. He is the RSC/Warwick International Playwright in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company 2008-2010, the Hodder Fellow at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, and has a seven-year residency at New Dramatist Center in New York. Tarell was the winner of 2009’s inaugural New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award.