Our Crew

Brittany Fisher

WRITER

Brittany Fisher (she/her) is an NYC-based playwright with roots in Richmond, VA and graduate of Juilliard's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Her play How to Bruise Gracefully won the 2021 Kennedy Center Lorraine Hansberry Award and was recognized by the Rosa Parks Award and Paula Vogel Award. Her play Your Regularly Scheduled Programming was a 2022 O’Neill NPC selection and recognized by the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Award. She was a 2018-20 Pipeline New Works Playwriting Fellow, and her work has been featured at and developed with the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, National Black Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Alliance Theatre's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, Virginia Repertory Theatre, and Cadence. She received her B.A. from James Madison University.

dl Hopkins

WRITER

dl Hopkins is an award-winning actor, poet, and the former Artistic Director of the African American Repertory Theatre of Virginia. Hopkins is a founder of the Southern Revolutionist Literary Guild (SRLG), a collective of poets and spoken word artists. While serving on the Board of Directors of James River Writers, Hopkins created the Just Poetry Slam, Richmond’s first and longest-running poetry slam. Hopkins is a founding member of the Jazz Actors Theatre established by his mentor, Ernie McClintock, founder of Harlem’s Afro-American Studio for Acting and Speech and the 127th Street Repertory Ensemble.

Margarette Joyner

WRITER

Margarette Joyner (she/her) is a director, actress, poet, singer, and costume designer based in Charlotte, NC. Joyner is a visiting professor of Costume Design at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of South Alabama and an MFA from VCU. Joyner founded The Heritage Ensemble Theatre Company in 2012 and served as the Artistic/Executive Director for 10 years. In addition to writing several stage plays, Joyner recently co-authored a book, When I Kill Him, Jesus Can Have Him, released through Pecan Tree Publishing. She also served as an Actor Interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, where she wrote several of her own solo programs, giving voice to those of the enslaved community in Williamsburg in the 18th Century.

Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green (she/her) is an award-winning artist-scholar whose work bridges research, performance, and pedagogy across Black Theatre and the African Diaspora. Recently appointed Professor of Theatre Arts and Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University, she brings more than twenty years of experience in higher education and a distinguished record of scholarship, creative practice, and academic leadership. Her research has been presented internationally and published widely in leading journals and edited collections. She is the founding editor-in-chief of The Black Theatre Review, the only peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to African Diasporic theatrical scholarship.

Prior to her current role, Omiyẹmi held faculty and research appointments at Morgan State University, Chicago State University, and Purdue University's Black Cultural Research Center. During her sixteen-year tenure at William & Mary, she advanced African American theatre pedagogy and production, developed innovative curricula, and directed numerous stage and screen projects. Her scholarship and creative endeavors have received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other leading funders. A recognized leader in the field, she has served in national leadership positions with the Black Theatre Network and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She holds a BA in Psychology from William & Mary and an MFA in Theatre Education from Virginia Commonwealth University.