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Biography
Kirsten Greenidge is a playwright from Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up, she regularly wrote and produced plays with the other kids in her neighborhood, as well as her sisters and began taking theatre classes at Wheelock Family theatre while still in high school. She attended Wesleyan University as a United States History Major, where she studied playwrighting with Darrah Cloud, and won her first playwrighting award. Soon after, Kirsten moved on to the Playwright's Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she studied with Naomi Iizuka, Erik Ehn, Sydne Mahone, among others.
At Iowa, Kirsten developed her voice. More often than not, Kirsten's work explores the intersections of race, class, and gender and seeks to place stories and language that are inherently theatrical on the American stage. She seeks to create more multidimensional roles for underrepresented actors of color, more roles for women, and more plays that challenge mainstream audiences and provoke change.
Kirsten is the recipient of a Village Voice Obie Award for her play MILK LIKE SUGAR, which was commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and Theatre Masters, and co-produced by La Jolla Playhouse, Playwrights Horizons, and WP Theatre. MILK LIKE SUGAR has also received a Lucille Lortel nomination, an AUDELCO nomination, and an Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award. Other plays include THE LUCK OF THE IRISH, originally produced by the Huntington Theatre Company; BALTIMORE, which is the product of a Big 10 Consortium Commission, a program created to address the lack of roles for female BFA candidates; ZENITH, most recently produced by San Francisco Playhouse's Sandbox Series; BUD NOT BUDDY with music by Terence Blanchard (Kennedy Center; Metro Stage); BOSSA NOVA (Yale Rep); SPLENDOR (Company One Theatre Company); and SANS-CULOTTES IN THE PROMISED LAND (Humana Festival/Actors Theatre of Louisville).
Currently, Kirsten is playwright-in-residence at Company One Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Mellon Foundation's National Playwright Residency Program administered in partnership by Howlround, where in addition to writing a play for Company One, she works in conjunction with C1's dramaturgy team to facilitate Playlab, C1's program for new and emerging playwrights. She was also recently named Boston's Playwright Laureate by Roxbury Community College. Kirsten is working on commissioned projects from La Jolla Playhouse (TO THE QUICK); Oregon Shakespeare Festival's American Revolutions Project (ROLL, BELINDA, ROLL); Huntington Theatre Company (COMMON GROUND with Melia Bensussen and AND MOIRA SPINS), and Playwrights Horizons (BEACON). She has also created an artist-centric project called Femtour with her sisters, novelist and essayist Kaitlyn Greenidge (WE LOVE YOU CHARLIE FREEMAN) and Dr. Kerri Greenidge (BOSTON'S ABOLITIONISTS) to tour feminist landmarks of the United States, write about their existence far and wide, and promote others to use that material in their work.
Kirsten is Assistant Professor of Theatre at the School of Theatre at Boston University and lives in Westborough, Massachusetts with her husband, two children, sister, and mother in their writing compound named Gwendolyn.
OPERA America/Opera.ca Grants Awarded
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| GRANT NAME | YEAR | Opera Grants for Women Composers: Commissioning Grants | 2020 |
Productions
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Artist Information
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