Erika Dickerson-Despenza
Photo courtesy of playwright
Erika Dickerson-Despenza is a writer, cultural memory worker, and farmer. She is the creator & inaugural resident of The Ntozake Shange Social Justice Playwriting Residency in partnership with The Public Theater, Barnard College & the Shange Trust. Erika is also the independent steward of The Daughters Table, a 14-acre regenerative organic farm & herbiary in South Central Louisiana. She is the artistic producer of the forthcoming Alice Dunbar-Nelson & Shirley Graham Du Bois Going to the River Festival, a development residency & annual theater festival showcasing new works of Black women, femmes, & gender expansive feminine-of-center transdisciplinary dramatic writers. Productions: shadow/land (The Public Theater, 2023), cullud wattah (The Public Theater, 2021), [hieroglyph] (San Francisco Playhouse/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 2021). Current Commissions: JamRock Productions adaptation of Betsey Brown (Ntozake Shange); AUDUBON, Studio Theater; CORPUS DELICTI, Williamstown Theater Festival; sweet rot: an intimate possession and MAHOGANY HALL, The Public Theater.