New Stages Series: Bios and Interviews
Thomas Bradshaw (Playwright)
Mr. Bradshaw's newest play, The Bereaved, will premiere in New York in September 2009 at The Wild Project. His play Southern Promises premiered at Performance Space 122 and Dawn premiered at The Flea Theater; both were listed among the Best Performances of Stage and Screen for 2008 in The New Yorker. In 2007, his play Purity was produced at Performance Space 122 and Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist and Cleansed were produced on a double bill at The Brick Theater. Strom was also produced in Los Angeles in the spring of 2008. Prophet, Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist, Cleansed and Purity are all published by Samuel French, Inc. Dawn and Southern Promises will be published by Samuel French in the fall of 2009. A German translation of Dawn was presented at Theater Bielefeld in Germany in October 2008 and published by Theater Der Zeit in that same month. Purity was published by Theaterheute in Germany in April 2008. Mr. Bradshaw received his MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program and is an Assistant Professor at Medgar Evers College. He has been featured as one of Time Out New York's ten playwrights to watch, as one of Paper Magazine's Beautiful People, and as Best Provocative Playwright by the Village Voice. He is currently a Fellow at The Lark Play Development Center, as well as the 2008-2009 Streslin Fellow at Soho Rep, where he has been working on his adaptation of the book of Job, which was workshopped at Stanford and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in spring 2009. He was a Fellow at New York Theater Workshop in 2006-07 and is now a Usual Suspect. Mr. Bradshaw is currently under commission from Goodman Theatre, The Flea Theater, Theater Bielefeld (Germany) and Partial Comfort Productions. During his Guggenheim Fellowship term, he will be working in England and Germany on his new play about Queen Charlotte.
Q. and A. with Playwright Thomas Bradshaw
Q. What inspired you to write this play?
A. It's based on a true story.
Q. What do you hope to discover about this play through the New Stages Series?
A. It will be the first time that I'll be working with actors on the play. I always learn a lot about a play once actors breathe life into the characters. Also, it will be the first time that I will hear the play with an audience. I'm very interested to see what the response will be.
Q. What advice would you give to an emerging playwright?
A. Don't wait for a theater to pick your script out of a pile and say, "We're going to produce this!" Though this is possible, it's unlikely. Get your work up wherever you can. Theaters aren't the only places where you can present work. Put on a play in a bar, or a church basement if you have to. Getting people to see your work on its feet is your most valuable asset.
Q. What do you hope New Stages audiences will take away from this reading of your play?
A. Part of what I do as a playwright is not comment on the action taking place on stage. I present a story, and let the audience take away from it what they will. In many plays, there is a particular lesson that's supposed to be learned from the viewing of the play. Not so with mine. I don't want the audience to take just one thing away from it. I want the play to force the audience to think deeply about what they've seen, to talk about it and come to whatever conclusions they will.
Q. What is the last book or movie you truly loved, and why?
A. I love the novel Wuthering Heights. I love it because Emily Brontë's characters behave in such an unpredictable and truthful manner. And the structure of her novel is totally unique. I think all artists should be attempting to create new forms.
Q. Is there anything else you would like your audiences to know about you or your play?
A. It won't be more than an hour and a half!
Carlyle Brown (Playwright)
Mr. Brown is a writer/performer and artistic director of Carlyle Brown & Company based in Minneapolis, which has produced The Masks of Othello: A Theatrical Essay, The Fula From America: An African Journey and Talking Masks. His plays include The African Company Presents Richard III, The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, Buffalo Hair, The Beggars' Strike, The Negro of Peter the Great, Pure Confidence, A Big Blue Nail and others. He has received commissions from Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Houston Grand Opera, Children's Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Miami University of Ohio and the University of Louisville. He is recipient of playwriting fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome Foundation, Theatre Communications Group and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Mr. Brown has been artist-in-residence at New York University School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program, The James Thurber House in Columbus and Ohio State University Theater Department where he directed his music drama, Yellow Moon Rising. He has been a teacher of expository writing at New York University; African American literature at the University of Minnesota; playwriting at Ohio State University and Antioch College; African American theater and dramatic literature at Carlton College as the Benedict Distinguished Visiting Artist; and "Creation and Collaboration" at the University of Minnesota Theater Department. He has worked as a museum exhibit writer and story consultant for the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit and the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville. Mr. Brown is a core member at Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, an alumnus of New Dramatists in New York and a member of the Dramatists Guild. He is on the board of directors of The Playwrights' Center and Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the non-profit professional theater and the Jerome Foundation. He is a member of the Charleston Jazz Initiative Circle at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, where his works and papers are archived. He is the 2006 recipient of The Black Theatre Network's Winona Lee Fletcher Award for outstanding achievement and artistic excellence and a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow.
Q. and A. with Playwright Carlyle Brown
Q. What inspired you to write this play?
A. In my first profession I worked as a sailor aboard traditional nineteenth-century sailing vessels. An old friend and shipmate, Jeffrey Bolster had written a book Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail. In it there is a chapter about Dartmoor Prison during the War of 1812. I always thought this little-known slice of American history was a good subject for a fictional story. When I was offered a commission to write a play for the Goodman, Literary Manager Tanya Palmer said to think big. I thought about Dartmoor Prison right away.
Q. What do you hope to discover about this play through the New Stages series?
A.Mostly what you want to discover in a workshop is whether or not the play works, and then how it works, and learn as much as you can about what you don't know about the play.
Q. What advice would you give to an emerging playwright?
A.I don't think that playwrights who are identified as "emerging" think of themselves in that way. They are writers, and that's always personal and individual. We're all emerging in one way or another, and what I like best when we get together is what we learn for each other.
Q. What do you hope New Stages audiences will take away from this reading of your play?
A.I hope that audiences come away with a sense of what a continuing, grueling, uphill battle it is to build and maintain law and democracy in a free society. That it is still a work in progress.
Q. What is the last book or movie you truly loved, and why?
A.The three seasons of the Canadian television series Slings and Arrows on dvd. It's about the contemporary theater and it is entertaining, reflective, funny and spot on.
Q. Is there anything else you would like your audiences to know about you or your play?
A. I'm more interested in getting to know the audiences as they get to know the play!
Kia Corthron (Playwright)
Ms. Corthron's Bugs of the Pigs in the Lions was commissioned by the Playwrights' Center McKnight National Residency. It was further supported by The Institute/Goodman Theatre Fellowship co-sponsored by the Goodman and Columbia College Chicago's Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. Her play Trickle was part of Ensemble Studio Theatre's One-Act Marathon last spring and A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick will premiere at Playwrights Horizons in March 2010. Other plays include Moot the Messenger at Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival; Light Raise the Roof at New York Theatre Workshop; Snapshot Silhouette at The Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis; Slide Glide the Slippery Slope at Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival and Mark Taper Forum; The Venus de Milo Is Armed at Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Breath, Boom at The Royal Court Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company and elsewhere; Force Continuum at Atlantic Theater Company; Splash Hatch on the E Going Down at New York Stage & Film, Baltimore's Center Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre and Donmar Warehouse; Seeking the Genesis at Goodman Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Club; Digging Eleven at Hartford Stage Company; Life by Asphyxiation at Playwrights Horizons; Wake Up Lou Riser at Delaware Theatre Company; Come Down Burning at American Place Theatre and Long Wharf Theatre; and Cage Rhythm at Sightlines/The Point in the Bronx. Awards include the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Creative Arts Residency (Italy), Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts, AT&T On Stage Award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, Mark Taper Forum's Fadiman Award, National Endowment for the Arts/TCG, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, Callaay Award and Connections Contest. In television, Ms. Corthron has been awarded a Writers Guild Outstanding Drama Series Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award for The Wire. She is currently a member of the Dramatists Guild Council and the Writers Guild of America, as well as an alumnus of New Dramatists.
Nilo Cruz (Playwright)
Mr. Cruz is a Cuban-American playwright whose work has been produced widely throughout the United States and Europe. His numerous plays include Night Train to Bolina, Dancing on her Knees, A Park in Our House, Two Sisters and a Piano, A Bicycle Country, Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams, Lorca in a Green Dress, Anna in the Tropics, Beauty of the Father, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and translations of Lorca's Dona Rosita the Spinster, The House of Bernarda Alba and Life Is A Dream. His work has been produced in New York at Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop and Repertorio Espanol. His plays have been produced regionally at McCarter Theatre, Shakespeare Festival Public Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Arena Stage, Alliance Theatre, Magic Theatre, The Children's Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Studio Theatre and Florida Stage. His plays have been produced internationally in London at Hampstead Theatre, Finborough Theatre and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, as well as in cities throughout Spain including Madrid and Seville. He is currently writing the book for the musical HAVANA! with music by Frank Wildhorn and a screenplay about Alina, daughter of Fidel Castro. Mr. Cruz is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including two NEA/TCG National Theatre Artist Residency grants, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, San Francisco's W. Alton Jones award and a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award. In 2003 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Anna in the Tropics and in 2009 he won The Laura Pels/PEN Mid-Career Achievement Award.
Robert Falls (Director/Goodman Theatre Artistic Director)
Mr. Falls has been the artistic director of Goodman Theatre since 1986. From 1977 to 1985, he was the artistic director of Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Most recently, Mr. Falls revived his critically acclaimed 2006 Goodman production of King Lear for Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he directed Desire Under the Elms on Broadway and A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century at the Goodman. This winter, he will remount his production of O'Neill's Hughie in the Goodman's Albert Theatre in a Broadway-bound double-bill with Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, both starring Brian Dennehy. In the spring, he will direct the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman's A True History of the Johnstown Flood, also in the Albert Theatre. Last season, Mr. Falls directed the Broadway revival of American Buffalo, Hughie for Long Wharf Theatre and Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Shining City for the Goodman and Huntington Theatre Company. Other recent productions include the Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, the world premiere of Richard Nelson's Frank's Home for the Goodman and Playwrights Horizons, the Tony Award-nominated American premiere of Shining City on Broadway, A Life in the Theatre for the Goodman and the London revival of Death of a Salesman. His production of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida for Walt Disney Theatricals ran on Broadway for four years, and toured nationally and abroad. Two of his most highly acclaimed Broadway productions, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (first staged at the Goodman) were honored with seven Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards. Previous Goodman credits include the world premieres of Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture, Rebecca Gilman's Blue Surge and Dollhouse, Eric Bogosian's Griller, Louis Rosen and Thom Bishop's Book of the Night, Steve Tesich's The Speed of Darkness and On the Open Road and John Logan's Riverview: A Melodrama with Music; the American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's House and Garden; the Midwest premieres of Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero and Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?; as well as Galileo, The Iceman Cometh, A Touch of the Poet, Three Sisters, The Night of the Iguana, Landscape of the Body, The Misanthrope, Pal Joey and The Tempest. Elsewhere, Mr. Falls has directed Blue Surge at Joseph Papp Public Theater, Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta on Broadway (Tony Award-nominated transfer from the Goodman), the world premiere of Eric Bogosian's subUrbia at Lincoln Center Theater (Obie Award for Best Director), The Rose Tattoo for Circle in the Square (Tony Award-nominated), The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, On the Open Road at Joseph Papp Public Theater, The Night of the Iguana at Roundabout Theatre and The Food Chain at Westside Theatre, as well as productions for Guthrie Theater, Remains Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera and Grande Théâtre de Genève. Honors received by Mr. Falls include: Human Spirit Award (Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis), Governor's Award for Outstanding Contributions by an Individual Artist (Illinois Arts Council), "Chicagoan of the Year" (Chicago magazine), Artistic Leadership Award (League of Chicago Theatres), election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (Lake Forest College), Special Jeff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Theatre and Chicago Illini of the Year Award (University of Illinois).
Henry Godinez (Director)
Mr. Godinez is the resident artistic associate at Goodman Theatre, where he is the curator of the Latino Theatre Festival, which will have its fifth installment in August 2010. Mr. Godinez appeared in the Goodman Theatre/Teatro Vista world premiere of José Rivera's Massacre (Sing to Your Children) and has also directed Boleros for the Disenchanted, Mariela in the Desert, Millennium Mambo, Electricidad, Straight as a Line, Zoot Suit, Red Cross, Cloud Tectonics and A Christmas Carol. Other directing work includes plays at Yale Repertory Theatre, Chicago Children's Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Next Theatre Company, Lifeline Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Signature Theatre Company, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Colorado Shakespeare Festival and Teatro Vista, which he co-founded and where he served as artistic director for the first five years. Born in Havana, Cuba, he currently serves as an associate professor at Northwestern University and was named the 2008 Latino Professional of the Year by the Chicago Latino Network.
Wendy Goldberg (Director)
Ms. Goldberg returns to the Goodman, where she directed Rebecca Gilman's The Crowd You're in With last season. Ms. Goldberg is in her sixth season as Artistic Director of the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, which she has re-established as a leader in the field. More than 40 projects have been developed and gone onto national acclaim during her tenure. Ms. Goldberg's off-Broadway directing credits include the world premiere of Deathbed at McGinn Cazale Theatre. Her regional credits include Master Class at Paper Mill Playhouse; Durango and Doubt at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; Doubt and The Chosen at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Third, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, Living Out and The Clean House at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts; the world premiere of False Creeds at Alliance Theatre; The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Proof, Book of Days, On the Jump and K2 at Arena Stage; and the upcoming production of Rebecca Gilman's Dollhouse at Guthrie Theater. She is the Creative Advisor for the Tony Award-nominated Rock of Ages currently on Broadway and is Creative Advising for two new Broadway-bound musicals. Ms. Goldberg was the Artistic Associate at Arena Stage from 2000 to 2005 and has directed in every major new play development program in the country. She proudly serves on the Executive Board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She received a BA at the University of Michigan and an MFA from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television.
Rohina Malik (Playwright)
Ms. Malik is a Chicago-based playwright, actress and solo artist. She was born and raised in London, England, and draws upon her South Asian heritage to inspire her art. Her highly acclaimed one-woman-play, Unveiled, had its world premiere at the 16th Street Theater, where Ms. Malik performed to sold-out houses. Unveiled will return to Chicago in March 2010 at the Victory Gardens Theater. She has worked with Rivendell Theatre Ensemble and Live Bait Theater. She workshopped her new play, Yasmina's Necklace (El collar de Yasmin), in August 2009 with Teatro Vista, Theatre with a View.
Q. and A. with Playwright Rohina Malik
Q. What inspired you to write this play?
A.A friend of mine told me about a woman he saw in a grocery store. She was wearing a necklace, which had a pendant in the shape of Iraq, with "Iraq" written in the center. I don't know why, but I could not get this woman and her necklace out of my head, and that's how Yasmina was born.
Q. What do you hope to discover about this play through the New Stages Series?
A.Writing a play is such a mysterious experience for me. It's a strange process. I listen carefully to the actors and the director as they give me feedback. And then, somebody makes a side remark that they think is insignificant, and the play takes a new direction. The gold for me as a writer has always been in the side remarks people make.
Q. What advice would you give to an emerging playwright?
A.I think it's really important to connect with other playwrights. Chicago playwrights really support each other. The advice I received from other playwrights has been priceless.
Q. What do you hope New Stages audiences will take away from this reading of your play?
A.My play deals not only with the Iraqi community, but also the Latino Muslim community. I hope the audience walks away with a broader view of what being Latino is.
Q. What is the last book or movie you truly loved, and why?
A.Three cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I was so moved by this book. Mortenson's story reminded me that anyone can change the world-you just need a lot of determination and an open heart.
Q. Is there anything else you would like your audiences to know about you or your play?
A. I'm working on a new play which is in its infancy at the moment. The characters are still inside my head, telling me their stories. I'm getting close to that place where I need to drop everything I'm doing and just go to my computer and write. I'm very excited to work with the Goodman and Henry Godinez, and I hope New Stages audiences will enjoy Yasmina's Necklace.
Marion McClinton (Director)
Mr. McClinton has been involved with the work of August Wilson for many years, having directed the Broadway revival of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; the premiere of King Hedley II on Broadway, at Pittsburgh Public Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Mark Taper Forum; Jitney off-Broadway, at Goodman Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Studio Arena Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Royal National Theatre, as well as having performed as Fielding in the 1985 version of Jitney at Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, where he is a company member; Gem of the Ocean at Goodman Theatre and Mark Taper Forum; Seven Guitars and Two Trains Running at Baltimore Center Stage; Joe Turner's Come and Gone at Missouri Repertory Theatre; Fences at Indiana Repertory Theatre; and Fences for Paramount Pictures. He has also directed Carson McCullers (Historically Inaccurate) for Playwrights Horizons/Women's Project and Productions, Breath Boom at Playwrights Horizons, Raisin in the Sun at Baltimore Center Stage, Talk at The Foundry Theatre, Jar the Floor at Second Stage (off-Broadway), Roar at The New Group, Death and the King's Horseman at Syracuse Stage and a workshop of Yellowman at McCarter Theatre. Mr. McClinton is an Associate Artist of Baltimore Center Stage, where his productions have included Les Blancs and Splash Hatch on the E Going Down. His other directing credits include Thunder Knocking on the Door at Guthrie Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage and Dallas Theater Center; The Coming of the Hurricane at Arena Stage; A Midsummer Night's Dream at La Jolla Playhouse; and Birdie Blue at Williamstown Theatre. Mr. McClinton is also a playwright whose drama Police Boys has been produced at Baltimore Center Stage, Playwrights Horizons and Pittsburgh Public Theater; productions of his other plays include Walkers off-Broadway at The Hudson Guild Theatre, Stones and Bones at Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays and Who Causes the Darkness? at Penumbra Theatre Company. Most recently, Mr. McClinton directed the premiere of Drowning Crow at Manhattan Theatre Club, Roar at The New Group and A.M. Sunday at Center Stage. Mr. McClinton is the recipient of two Audelco Awards, the OBIE, NEA/TCG Pew Charitable Trust Grant, Drama Desk and Evening Standard nominations. He is a New Dramatists Alumnus, a company member at the Penumbra Theatre and an associate artist at Center Stage.
Chuck Smith (Director)
Mr. Smith is Goodman Theatre's resident director and an associate producer of Legacy Productions, a Chicago-based touring company. Mr. Smith's Goodman credits include the Chicago premieres of Proof and The Story; the world premieres of By the Music of the Spheres and The Gift Horse; James Baldwin's The Amen Corner, which transferred to Boston's Huntington Theatre Company where it won the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award for Best Direction; Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun; Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky; August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; the Fats Waller musical Ain't Misbehavin'; the 1993 to 1995 productions of A Christmas Carol; Crumbs From the Table of Joy; Vivisections from a Blown Mind and The Meeting. He served as dramaturg for the world-premiere production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean at the Goodman. He directed Knock Me a Kiss at Victory Gardens Theater, where his directing credits include Master Harold and the Boys, Home, Dame Lorraine with Esther Rolle and Eden, for which he received a Jeff Award nomination for best direction. Regionally, he directed Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Birdie Blue at Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Story at Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Blues for an Alabama Sky at Alabama Shakespeare Festival and The Last Season for The Robey Theatre Company in Los Angeles. At Columbia College he was facilitator of the Theodore Ward Prize playwriting contest for 20 years and editor of the contest anthologies Seven Black Plays and Best Black Plays. He won a Chicago Emmy Award as associate producer/theatrical director for the NBC teleplay Crime of Innocence and was theatrical director for the Emmy Award-winning Fast Break to Glory and the Emmy Award-nominated The Martin Luther King Suite. He was a founding member of the Chicago Theatre Company, where he served as artistic director for four seasons and directed the Jeff Award-nominated Suspenders and the Jeff Award-winning musical Po'. His directing credits include productions at ETA, Black Ensemble Theater, Northlight Theatre, MPAACT, Congo Square Theatre Company, The New Regal Theater, Kuumba Theatre Company, Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, Pegasus Players, the Timber Lake Playhouse in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, the Black Theatre Troupe in Phoenix, Arizona, and the New York premiere of The Hooch at the New Federal Theatre. Mr. Smith is a 2003 inductee into the Chicago State University Gwendolyn Brooks Center's Literary Hall of Fame and a 2001 Chicago Tribune Chicagoan of the Year. He is the proud recipient of the 1982 Paul Robeson Award and the 1997 Award of Merit presented by the Black Theater Alliance of Chicago. He is currently a board member of the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago.
Regina Taylor (Playwright)
Ms. Taylor's most recent play, Magnolia, premiered in the Goodman's 2008/2009 season, directed by Anna D. Shapiro (Tony Award-winning director for August: Osage County). Her play The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove premiered at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and was produced at the Goodman in June 2006 with Taylor directing. Drowning Crow, her adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, was produced on Broadway at Manhattan Theater Club's Biltmore Theater. Taylor wrote the award winning Crowns, which was first produced at the McCarter Theatre and at Second Stage in New York, and has become the most performed musical in America; Taylor also directed the production to critical acclaim. Taylor's other plays include Oo-Bla-Dee, which premiered at the Goodman and which won the 2000 American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award; Escape From Paradise, a one-woman show; Watermelon Rinds; Inside the Belly of the Beast; Mudtracks; Love Poem #97; and she curated Urban Zulu Mambo, an evening of plays by Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, Suzan-Lori Parks and Kia Corthron. Taylor 's acting credits include roles on Broadway, off-Broadway and in numerous resident theaters. Her film credits include Clockers, Losing Isaiah, Lean on Me, A Family Thing, Courage Under Fire, with Denzel Washington and The Negotiator with Samuel L. Jackson. For her role as Lilly Harper on the television series I'll Fly Away, Taylor won an NAACP Image Award, was nominated for an Emmy Award and received the Golden Globe Award for Best Leading Dramatic Actress. She appeared as Cora in Cora Unashamed in PBS's Masterpiece Theater American Collection. She was seen on CBS's The Education of Max Bickford as Judith Bryant. Her additional television credits include the CBS series FEDS, Law & Order, Crisis at Central High, The Howard Beach Story, Children of the Dust with Sidney Poitier, and Strange Justice, a Showtime original film in which she portrayed Anita Hill (Peabody Award, Gracie Award). Most recently she portrayed Molly on CBS's The Unit written and produced by David Mamet and Shawn Ryan (2008 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama).