In addition to her duties as MfA's Program Associate, Shawn Rene Graham is a freelance writer and dramaturg from San Jose, California and has worked with many writers including, Kia Corthron, Nilo Cruz, Eduardo Machado, Walter Mosley, Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori Parks, John Henry Redwood, Guillermo Reyes, Paul Rudnick, Susan Sontag, Dominic A. Taylor, Edwin Sanchez and Naomi Wallace. She is the former Literary and Education Associate of the Hartford Stage Company. While there, she contributed to many productions including The Colored Museum (1996), Love Langston (1997), Happy Days (1997), starring Estelle Parsons, Digging Eleven (1998) and Dutchman (2000). In February of 2000, she organized a humanities panel for Hartford Stage entitled Dutchman: Drama as Social Critique, which included playwright and poet Amiri Baraka, editor of the Amiri Baraka Reader William Harris and actresses Robbie McCauley and Shirley Knight.
She has also served as a guest dramaturg O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Crossroads Theatre Genesis Festival, the New Professional Theatre, and African American Women's New Play Festival and on many panels including, National Endowments for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Artist Grants Panel in Playwriting and Mark Taper Forum's New Works Festival.
Her other work includes an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters produced by the Prospect Theatre Company (2002), and workshops of Michael Bradford's Willy's Cut and Shine at the Ensemble Studio Theatre (2003) and Rootwoman at Aaron Davis Hall (2004). She contributed several entries for the African American encyclopedia, African Society from A to Z published by Sage in 2005. Other writings can be seen in Hartford Stage, Seattle Repertory Theatre publications and Theatre Journal.
Recently, Ms. Graham began working in dance and has dramaturged the Errol Grimes Dance Group's RED at the Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Arts Center (2004), Mrs. Robeson in Moscow, Sunday Day and Prism to a Dream at the Paul Robeson Theatre (2005) and By the Sea at the Henry Street Settlement's Harry De Jur Playhouse (2005). She holds degrees from the California State University, Los Angeles and the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training (A.R.T) at Harvard University. She continues to assist playwrights in the development of their work, acting as a consultant to Blackberry Productions of Harlem, NY and as the chair of the newly formed A.R.T Institute Alumni Lab. Ms. Graham lives in Manhattan.
