Dael Orlandersmith (born Donna Brown, 1960–) is an American actress, poet and playwright. She is known for her

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

-winning ''Beauty's Daughter'' and the 2002

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

Finalist in Drama, ''

Yellowman Winston Foster , better known by the stage name Yellowman, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay, also known as King Yellowman. He first became popular in Jamaica in the 1980s, rising to prominence with a series of singles that established ...

''.

Early life

Orlandersmith, born Donna Dael Theresa Orlander Smith Brown in 1959, in New York City's

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

. She attended

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

but left to attend acting classes at the

HB Studio The HB Studio (Herbert Berghof Studio) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization offering professional training in the performing arts through classes, workshops, free lectures, theater productions, theater rentals, a theater artist residency prog ...

and

Actors Studio The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded ...

. She wrote of her work: "There is a theme throughout the work that I write...about childhood and the sins of the father, the sins of the mother, and how people take on the very thing they don’t like about their parents and they become them.”

Career

;''Beauty's Daughter'' Her play ''Beauty's Daughter'' premiered

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

at the

American Place Theatre The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan at St. Clement's Church, 423 West 46th Street in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennesse ...

from January 25, 1995 to March 26, 1995. Directed by

Peter Askin Peter Askin (born 1940) is an actor, director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing the 2007 film '' Trumbo'', a documentary about the Oscar-winning Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo who was blacklisted for being a member of the Ho ...

it is a one-woman performance piece. As described by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reviewer, the show "aims at more than an extended poetry reading. Such plotting as there is follows Diane from her puberty ("I'm a woman now/I am 13 and bleeding in a Harlem living room") to her early 30s." Orlandersmith performs all of the characters by herself "...more of a mimic than an actress. But she is a good mimic, and in switching from female to male, from Puerto Rican to Italian or Irish, from youth to elderly, she only rarely slips from characterization into caricature." Orlandersmith received the 1994-1995

Special Citation for this play. Part of her award-winning ''Beauty's Daughter's'' program can be heard as a segment of a September 1996 taping of radio show ''

This American Life ''This American Life'' (''TAL'') is an American monthly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internation ...

''; in this segment, Orlandersmith performs "When You Talk About Music", in which she portrays a 31-year-old Italian male who meets a black woman at a mutual friend's wedding and finds how much he misses musical expression. ;''Monster'' ''Monster'' opened at the

New York Theatre Workshop __NOTOC__ New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is an Off-Broadway theatre noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 4th Street (Manhattan), East 4th Street between Second Avenue (Manhattan), Second Avenue and Bowery in the East Village, ...

on October 31, 1996 and closed on January 19, 1997. A solo show, it was directed by Peter Askin and starred Orlandersmith. The play ran at

ACT Theatre ACT Theatre (originally A Contemporary Theatre) is a regional, non-profit theatre organization in Seattle, in the US state of Washington. Gregory A. Falls (1922–1997) founded ACT in 1965 and served as its first Artistic director; at the time ACT ...

, Seattle, Washington in January 2001 to February 11, 2001. Misha Berson, reviewing for ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...

'' wrote: "An imposing, fervent performer-writer, Orlandersmith clearly knows this terrain by heart. It's also the treacherous landscape of her monodrama, ''The Gimmick,'' performed to high praise at ACT's Bullitt Cabaret last year. Returning with ''Monster,'' Orlandersmith is as compelling an actor as ever. Yet by comparison, this earlier script is not as agile a vehicle for her burning talents and concerns as ''The Gimmick.''... As in ''The Gimmick,'' the destruction of innocents is a primary theme for Orlandersmith." ;''The Gimmick'' ''The Gimmick'' was produced Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop from April 16, 1999 in previews, officially on May 5, 1999 to May 23, 1999, directed by Chris Coleman. The play was first produced at the

McCarter Theatre McCarter Theatre Center is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. The institution is currently led by Artistic Director Sarah Rasmussen and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg. ...

, Princeton, New Jersey on February 28, 1998, performed by Orlandersmith and directed and conceived by Peter Askin. The play was next performed at the Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut on October 27, 1998. The play was written with the support of the Sundance Theatre. ''The Gimmick'' is a one-woman piece and, according to ''

Playbill ''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's pr ...

'', is about "two childhood friends from East Harlem. Together they dream of careers as artists and the elusive gimmick that will take them out of their current surrounding into the life they desire." Orlandersmith received a Special Commendation for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 1999-2000 for ''The Gimmick''. ;''Yellowman'' ''

'' premiered Off-Broadway at the

Manhattan Theatre Club Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) is a theatre company located in New York City, affiliated with the League of Resident Theatres. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has gr ...

in October 2002 and was commissioned by

in Princeton, New Jersey. Orlandersmith won the 2003 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for ''Yellowman'', and was a finalist for the 2002

Pulitzer Prize for Drama The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...

. The two main characters in the play, Alma, a dark skinned woman, and Eugene, a light skinned man, live in Coastal South Carolina in the

Gullah The Gullah () are an African Americans, African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain ...

region. ''Yellowman'' focuses on the issue of

colorism Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism, or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and/or discrimination in which people who share similar ethnicity traits or perceived race are treated differently based on the social implications th ...

in the black community through the character's love story. ;''Horsedreams'' ''Horsedreams'' premiered Off-Broadway at the

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Rattlestick Theater is a non-profit off-Broadway theater based in the West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional b ...

from November 17, 2011 to December 11, 2011 (originally, extended to December 17). Directed by

Gordon Edelstein Gordon Edelstein is an American theatre director. He was Artistic Director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut from 2002 until January 2018, when he was fired following allegations of sexual misconduct. Biography He received a Bach ...

, the cast featured Orlandersmith (Mira), Roxanna Hope (Desiree), Michael Laurence (Loman), and Matthew Schechter (Luka). The play tells of a family destroyed by drug addiction. The ''CurtainUp'' reviewer wrote: "...it is written in a beautifully composed, essentially lyrical, narrative-driven style... 'Horsedreams' continues a recurring theme that runs through 'Yellowman', as well as other Orlandersmith’s plays: how children are undone by the sins of their parents... There is nothing common about Orlandersmith’s lyrical prose, and 'Horsedreams' is a fine addition to her continually growing canon." ;''Forever'' ''Forever'' was commissioned and produced by

Center Theatre Group Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and th ...

, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Los Angeles, California. The play ran at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in October 2014. The play was presented Off-Broadway at the

starting on April 22, 2015 in previews, to May 31, 2015, directed by Neel Keller. The one-woman play is a "semi-autobiographical exploration of the family we are born into and the family we choose." Part of the play is set in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Orlandersmith was nominated for the 2015 Off Broadway Alliance Award, Best Solo Performance. The play ran at the Long Wharf Theatre Stage II (New Haven, Connecticut), from January 8, 2015 to February 1, 2015.Minor, E. Kyle
"Review: Dael Orlandersmith’s ‘Forever’ conjures spirits to artfully tell how she saved her soul"
''New Hampshire Register'', January 8, 2015 ;''Until the Flood'' ''Until the Flood'' was commissioned by The Repertory Theatre of St Louis and premiered there in the fall of 2016. The play had its first public reading as part of The Rep's INGNITE Series on March 25, 2016. The Rep commissioned Orlandersmith to write and perform a play about the recent events in Ferguson. She fashioned a sensitive and moving portrayal of the people in the St Louis community, and how they feel about an event that placed St. Louis in a spotlight it didn't expect or relish.

Plays

* ''Beauty's Daughter'' (1995, American Place Theater: New York) * ''Monster'' (1996, New York Theatre Workshop) * ''The Gimmick'' (1998-1999, McCarter Theatre: Princeton, Long Wharf Theatre: New Haven, & New York Theatre Workshop) * ''My Red Hand, My Black Hand'' (2001, Long Wharf Theatre: New Haven) * ''

'' (2002, McCarter Theatre: Princeton, Wilma Theater: Philadelphia, Long Wharf Theatre: New Haven, and Manhattan Theatre Club) * ''Raw Boys'' (2005, Wilma Theater: Philadelphia) * ''The Blue Album'' (2007, Long Wharf Theatre: New Haven) * ''Stoop Stories'' (2009, Studio Theatre: Washington DC and Goodman Theater: Chicago) * ''Bones'' (2010, Kirk Douglas Theater: Los Angeles) * ''Horsedreams'' (2011, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater: New York) * ''Black N Blue Boys/Broken Men'' (2012, Berkeley Rep and Goodman Theater: Chicago) * ''Forever'' (2014, Kirk Douglas Theater: Los Angeles and New York Theatre Workshop) * ''Antoino's Song'' (2019, Contemporary American Theatre Festival) * ''New Age'' (2022, Milwaukee Repertory Theater)

Awards and nominations

;Awards * 1995

for ''Beauty's Daughter'' * 2003

Susan Smith Blackburn Prize The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize established in 1978, is the largest and oldest playwriting prize for women+ writing for English-speaking theatre. Named for Susan Smith Blackburn (1935–1977), alumna of Smith College, who died of breast cancer. W ...

* 2005

PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award The PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award, commonly referred to as the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award, is awarded by the PEN America (formerly PEN American Center). It annually recognizes two American playwrights. A medal is given ...

for a playwright in mid-career * 2008 Whiting Award ;Nominations * 2002

Finalist for ''

'' * 2003

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

nomination - Outstanding Play, ''Yellowman''

References

External links

* *
Dael Orlandersmith
at

Internet Off-Broadway Database The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway. The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundation ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orlandersmith Living people Obie Award recipients American film actresses 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights African-American dramatists and playwrights American women poets Place of birth missing (living people) American women dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American women writers People from East Harlem African-American poets 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century African-American writers 1960 births