Zora Howard is an American actress and writer. She is best known for co-writing and starring in the 2019 drama ''

Premature Premature may refer to: * ''Premature'' (2014 film), an American comedy film * ''Premature'' (2019 film), an American romantic drama film * ''PREMature'', a 2015 British television drama miniseries See also * Premature aging, of an organism * P ...

''. Her debut play, ''STEW'', premiered off-Broadway in February 2020 and was a finalist for the

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 ...

Early life and education

Howard was born to veterinarian Julie Butler and Claude Howard and raised in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

. She began writing poetry at a young age, and performed with the spoken word group The Strivers Row. At age 13 she was the youngest poet ever to win the Urban Word NYC Grand Slam finals. She received her Bachelors of Arts from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 2014. She received a Masters of Fine Arts from the graduate acting program at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

Career

'' is Howard's first starring role and debut feature film screenplay, co-written with director Rashaad Ernesto Green. Howard previously met Green in New York's theater scene when she was 11. When she was 14, he cast her in his student film while a student at NYU Tisch, also called ''Premature''. She also worked with Green on his first feature film, '' Gun Hill Road''. In 2017, Green contacted Howard to develop a feature film script for ''Premature''. The film follows Howard as Ayanna, a 17-year-old New Yorker who strikes up a summer romance with an artist in his twenties (Joshua Boone). It premiered at Sundance 2019. The film received positive critical reception. Writing for ''

Elle ''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the w ...

'', Candace Frederick called it "the kind of confident, remarkably vulnerable drama to which even veteran storytellers aspire." Michael Cuby of ''

Nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from petro ...

'' described it as, "a coming-of-age love story that's as much about finding your first love as it is about using that first love to find yourself." Howard's first play, ''STEW'', ran in February 2020 at Walkerspace in New York. It centers a family of three generations of women who must grapple with their personal choices. In a mainly positive review for ''Vulture'', Helen Shaw stated, "Howard moves from broad strokes to ontological bewilderment almost before you know it...Howard makes us hear hundreds of years of pain, knocking to be let in."

Accolades

* 2020-2021 Van Lier New Voices Fellow, The Lark * 2021

, Finalist (for ''STEW)''

References

External links

*
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Zora Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Actresses from New York City Writers from Manhattan 21st-century American women writers African-American poets African-American actresses People from Harlem African-American screenwriters 21st-century American screenwriters Yale University alumni University of California, San Diego alumni 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century African-American writers