Biographies of 2009 Resident Playwrights

Ayanna Maia is a Chicago native who currently resides in Brooklyn. She is a MFA candidate at NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program. Artist Statement:

I am a warrior for inner peace. The African Diaspora is the space I claim. My work is seasoned with laughter and tears on a plate of self-recognition. I attack misogyny and caricatures of the black female body through hip-hop and magical realism to re-create social movement on stage. Honoring ancestral lineage, using spirituality, and loving Blackness in post-colonial America fuels my creativity.

Derek Lee McPhatter is thrilled to take part in Freedom Train Productions. Originally from Pickerington Ohio, he has lived in Atlanta and Japan and calls Harlem home. Derek’s accomplishments include publications in the journals Anamesa and Flash Fantastic, and the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. He is the co-author of It Goes Unsaid, the signature show for Under the Spell Productions. He was a quarterfinalist in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writer’s of the Future Contest, and is a member of the Harlem Arts Alliance and the Speculative Literature Foundation. He holds degrees from Morehouse College and NYU, where he completed his master’s thesis—Let the Kids Say Amen: Black Gay Spaces and the Hybridity of Gospel House Music. By days, Derek works at the Apollo Theater and hosts the 2009 Apollo Salon Series, a works-in-development program presented weekends in April. He invites you to check out his blog: www.itsdmcp.blogspot.com for more.

Patricia Ione Lloyd studied theatre at DePaul University Conservatory (formerly the Goodman School of Drama). To date, all of her full length plays have won awards. She received New Professional Theatre’s Emerging Playwright Award for her play, Black Tale and Downtown Urban Theatre’s Best Play Award for her play, This Train is Bound for Glory. She volunteers with Rhythm Visions Production Company, a non profit arts organization that works in communities of color. She is also a member of the College Board’s National Task Force on Arts in Education.

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