Tarell Alvin McCraney

Tarell Alvin McCraney (born October 17, 1980) is an award-winning American playwright and actor. He is a member of Teo Castellanos/ D Projects Theater Company in Miami and in 2008 became RSC/Warwick International Playwright in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In April 2010, McCraney became the 43rd member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.

Biography

A reading at Elliott Bay Books, Seattle, Washington, co-presented with the Seattle Repertory Theatre, in association with Seattle Rep's staging of The Breach, a play based on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. At right, New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, author of 1 Dead in Attic. To his right (our left) I believe this is Tarell Alvin McCraney, Catherine Filloux, and Joe Sutton, co-authors of The Breach.

McCraney attended the New World School of the Arts High School, (Miami, Fl) receiving the exemplary artist award and the Dean's Award in Theater. While attending NWSA, he also applied to and was awarded by the National YoungArts Foundation (1999, Theater). He matriculated into The Theatre School at DePaul University and received his BFA in acting. In May 2007 he graduated from Yale School of Drama's playwriting program where he received the Cole Porter Playwriting Award upon graduation.

As an actor he has worked with directors such as Tina Landau of the Steppenwolf Theater Ensemble Chicago, IL, David Cromer and BJ Jones artistic director of the Northlight Theatre (where he co-starred in the Chicago Premiere of Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange), and began a lasting working relationship with Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Etienne of the Bouffes du Nord, Paris.

His Brother/Sister trilogy are set in the Louisiana Projects and explore Yoruba mythology.

Plays

• Head of Passes Steppenwolf Theatre
• Choir Boy Royal Court
• American Trade, an adaptation of Hamlet for young people RSC
• Wig Out! (developed at Sundance Theatre Lab produced in New York by the Vineyard Theatre and in London by the Royal Court)

The Brother/Sister Plays' trilogy

• The Brothers Size (simultaneously premiered in New York at the Public Theatre, in association with the Foundry Theatre, and in London at the Young Vic, where it was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement at an Affiliated THeatre)
• In The Red And Brown Water (winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, produced at the Alliance Theatre and the Young Vic)
• Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet

Other plays

• Without/Sin
• Run, Mourner, Run (adapted from Randall Kenan's short story), both of which premiered at Yale Cabaret. He directed Hamlet for the RSC's Young Shakespeare programme for GableStage in Miami.

In the summer of 2006, McCraney, Catherine Filloux and Joe Sutton wrote The Breach, a play on Katrina, the Gulf, and our nation, commissioned by Southern Rep in New Orleans, where it premiered in August 2007 to mark the two-year anniversary of the tragedy in New Orleans. The Breach also played at Seattle Rep in the winter of 2007.

Forthcoming projects

Commissions for the Donmar Warehouse and Berkeley Rep. Choir Boy will receive its American premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club, and he will direct his own edit of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra at the RSC, Public Theatre New York and GableStage Miami.

Awards and honors

• 2008 London's Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright
• 2009 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award for "The Brothers Size"
• 2009 Steinberg Playwright Award^[1]
• 2013 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize^[2]
• 2013 MacArthur Fellowship

References