Shontina Vernon

SHONTINA VERNON is a theatre artist/filmmaker/ musician/creative facilitator/ and educator. She fuses performance, live music, and multi-media in centering the narratives of marginalized communities. Vernon is a recipient of the 2016-18 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation “Artist as Activist” Fellowship
for the creation of the Visionary Justice StoryLab, a collaboratory of interdisciplinary artists, activists, media makers and community members working to address the impact of systemic oppression through storytelling and performance based healing practices. She is also this year’s Herb Alpert/MacDowell Colony Fellow in Theatre and a 2017 MAP Fund grantee.

Her theatre work has been developed and produced by New York Theatre Workshop, Seattle’s ACT Theatre, the Hansberry Project, the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, and featured at the World Wide Words International Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. Most noted among her plays are WOMEN OF THE WILD ROOT, A LOVELY MALFUNCTION (nominated for a 2016 NYC Audelco Award), and WANTED. She is currently developing FORGING AHEAD on the impact juvenile incarceration has on who we become as adults with Flying Carpet Theatre, and LAST KIND WORDS, the story of two black queer women and their erasure from the American blues canon. Her recent short film, GRRRL JUSTICE, exploring the pathways of girls and gender non-confirming youth of color into the juvenile justice system is in now in post production.