Lisa B. Thompson

Discipline: Playwriting

Based In: Austin, TX

Year at Millay: 2017

Awards/Honors: Grant Recipient, Documentation & Storytelling Fund, National Performance Network, New Orleans, LA (2024); Fellow, MacDowell, Peterborough, NH (2021); Fellow, ACLS Fellowship Program, American Council of Learned Societies, New York, NY (2020); Fellow, Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellowship, W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2010–2011).

Website: https://www.lisabthompson.com/

Lisa B. Thompson’s satirical comedies, poignant dramas, and insightful criticism explode stereotypes about Black life in the US, particularly the experiences of the Black middle class. Her award-winning plays Single Black FemaleUndergroundMonroeThe Mamalogues and The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the US, and internationally. Thompson’s creative and scholarly work has received support from institutions such as Hedgebrook, MacDowell, National Performance Network, Black Art Matters ATX, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Clayman Institute for Gender Research, American Council of Learned Societies, W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center, Fusebox Festival, and Texas Performing Arts. Her publications include Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class, Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays, as well as articles in Criterion CollectionTheatre JournalJournal of American Drama, NPR, Theatre Survey, ClutchHuffington Post and The Washington Post. In 2022 Thompson began co-hosting and co-producing Black Austin Matters, an NPR podcast that explores Black life, culture, and politics in Central Texas. She is currently the Patton Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.