Tracey Scott Wilson

Tracey Scott Wilson
Born	Newark, New Jersey
Occupation	Playwright, Writer

Tracey Scott Wilson is an American playwright and TV writer whose works have been produced nationally and internationally. She graduated from Rutgers University in 1989 with a BA in English and from Temple University with an MA in English Literature in 1993.^[1][2]

Career

Wilson began writing fiction after graduating from Temple University. Finding herself unable to finish a novel, she decided to take a playwriting class. 'I didn't see much theater as a kid, so I had no expectations...It just took me over.'^[3] Wilson soon realized that she had found her métier and wrote a number of short plays. At the encouragement of her mentor, playwright Chiori Miyagawa, Wilson applied for and won a New York Theatre Workshop fellowship in 1998.^[4]

Wilson’s work has received readings at New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage Theatre, The Public Theater, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Soho Theatre Writers Centre in London. Awards and residencies include two Van Lier fellowships from the New York Theatre Workshop, a residency at the Sundance Institute Playwright’s Retreat at Ucross and the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, the 2001 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, the 2003 AT&T Onstage Award, the 2004 Whiting Writers Award, the 2004 Kesselring Prize, the 2007 L. Arnold Weissberger Award and the 2007 Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship. In 2009, she was the writer-in-residence at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. On February 29, 2014, the Joyce Foundation announced that Wilson was one of the recipients of its 2014 Joyce Awards.^[5] Wilson will work with the Pillsbury House Theater on a new play, Prep, for the theater's 2015 season.

Wilson's productions include Order My Steps for Cornerstone Theater Company’s Black Faith/AIDS project in Los Angeles; Exhibit #9, which was produced in New York City by New Perspectives Theatre Company and Theatre Outrageous; Leader of the People, produced at New Georges; Buzzer at Pillsbury House Theatre; two 10-minute plays produced at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and a 10-minute play produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Wilson's first major Manhattan production was in 2003 with 'The Story' at the Public Theater.^[6] The Good Negro was produced at The Public and then at the Goodman Theater in 2010. Her new work, Buzzer, will be produced as part of the Goodman's 2013-14 season.^[7] The Story and The Good Negro have been published by Dramatists Play Services.

She has taught and guest lectured at Brown University, Yale University, Rutgers University and New York University.

Wilson is also a TV staff writer.^[8] Her episode of NBC's Do No Harm aired on August 18, 2013. She is currently staffed on F/X's The Americans.

Works

• The Story. Dramatists Play Service, Inc. 2004. ISBN 978-0-8222-1998-9. 
• Order My Steps,
• Exhibit #9
• Neon Mirage, New York International Fringe Festival, 2006
• Leader of the People
• The Good Negro ^[9]
• Buzzer

Anthologies

• Adrien-Alice Hansel, Julie Felise Dubiner, ed. (2008). "Paradise". Humana Festival: The Complete Plays. Playscripts, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9709046-1-4. 

Reviews

THE STORY 'At times, whether one “likes” a play matters less than the way in which it resonates in the imagination long after the drama has unfolded, the sets have been struck, and life has returned to what it is, or might be. After seeing Tracey Scott Wilson’s “The Story” (at the Public), I was so taken by the stark poeticism of her dramatic form that I couldn’t tell whether my high was based on admiration for the play as a whole or for Wilson’s literary ear in particular.'^[10]

THE GOOD NEGRO 'In hindsight the ultimate triumph of the civil rights movement seems inevitable, the bright sun of enlightenment inevitably burning through clouds of ignorance and injustice. Ms. Wilson reminds us how precarious it seemed at the time, as each day brought new evidence of human fear and cruelty and weakness. The play does not diminish the actors in the struggle by exploring its psychic costs; on the contrary, to see them as troubled, sometime troublesome human beings makes their achievement shine ever brighter.'^[11]

BUZZER 'In this one-act, Wilson has delivered a taut, well-structured work, with strongly suggestive overlapping dialogue. For the most part, the playwright resists the temptation to use her characters as mouthpieces. There are a couple of places where they sound like they are about to launch into lectures, but mercifully don’t. The characters do revert to form, or to expected roles, offering a stark answer to the idea that the nation is 'postracial.'^[12]

References

External links

• "TRACEY SCOTT WILSON", doollee
• MARK BLANKENSHIP (February 25, 2009). "Civil Rights, and Wrongs, in Alabama". The New York Times.