Lydia R. Diamond
(Bio as of February 2002)
Lydia R. Diamond most recently collaborated with the Goodman on The Gift Horse during the 2001/2002 Season. She is the author of such works as Solitaire, recipient of the Agnes Nixon Playwriting Award, The Inside, a one-woman show, and Here I Am...See Can You Handle It, a one-woman show adapted from the poems and writings of Nikki Giovanni, first performed at the Bailiwick's Directors Festival and later produced with Another Small Black Theatre Company With Good Things to Say and a Lot of Nerve Productions, which she founded shortly after graduating from college. The Inside was professionally premiered by MPAACT at Victory Gardens Theatre and then toured for three months to colleges and towns in the Southeast and Midwest. She is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, where she has developed and staged public readings of her most recent works, including Stage Black, third place recipient of the Theodore Ward Playwriting Award, which premiered at the Cincinnati Arts Consortium in 2000, and The Gift Horse, part of the 2000 Women at the Door Festival at Famous Door Theatre and first place recipient of the Theodore Ward Playwriting Award. Diamond's acting credits include the U.S. premiere of Four with About Face Theatre Company, Mary Zimmerman's Eleven Rooms of Proust with Lookingglass and About Face, The Inside with MPAACT, for which she received a Black Theatre Alliance Award nomination, and Faith and the Good Thing with City Lit and the Chicago Theatre Company, for which she received a BTAA Award for best lead actress. Ms. Diamond holds a BS in theater and performance studies from Northwestern University and has taught at Loyola University, Gallery 37, and at Chicago Dramatists. She currently teaches acting and playwriting at Columbia College.
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