Tarell Alvin McCraney

Tarell Alvin McCraney
McCraney in 2017
Born	(1980-10-17) October 17, 1980 Liberty City, Florida, U.S.
Occupation	Playwright actor
Education	DePaul University (BFA) Yale University (MFA)
Notable awards	Windham-Campbell Literature Prize MacArthur Fellow Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay

Tarell Alvin McCraney (born October 17, 1980) is an American playwright and actor, and as of July 2017 has been the chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama. He is also a member of Teo Castellanos/D Projects Theater Company in Miami and in 2008 became RSC/Warwick International Playwright in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In April 2010, McCraney became the 43rd member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.

He co-wrote the 2016 film Moonlight, based on his own play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also wrote the screenplay for the film High Flying Bird, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh and released by Netflix on February 8, 2019.

Life and career

A reading at Elliott Bay Books, Seattle, Washington, co-presented with the Seattle Repertory Theatre, in association with Seattle Rep's staging of The Breach, a play based on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. At right, New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, author of 1 Dead in Attic. To his right are Tarell Alvin McCraney, Catherine Filloux, and Joe Sutton, co-authors of The Breach.

McCraney was born in Liberty City, Florida. He attended the New World School of the Arts (NWSA) in Miami, Florida, receiving the exemplary artist award and the Dean's Award in Theater. While attending NWSA, he also applied to and was awarded an honorable mention by the National YoungArts Foundation (1999, Theater). He matriculated into The Theatre School at DePaul University and received his BFA in acting. In May 2007 he graduated from Yale School of Drama's playwriting program, receiving the Cole Porter Playwriting Award upon graduation. He also is an Honorary Warwick University Graduate.

As an actor, he has worked with directors such as Tina Landau of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago, Illinois, David Cromer, and B. J. Jones, artistic director of the Northlight Theatre (where McCraney co-starred in the Chicago premiere of Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange), and developed a working relationship with Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne of the Bouffes du Nord, Paris.

McCraney's Brother/Sister trilogy is set in the Louisiana projects and explores Yoruba mythology.

Personal life

McCraney is openly gay.

Works

Plays

• Ms. Blakk for President (Steppenwolf Theatre)
• Head of Passes (Steppenwolf Theatre, Berkeley Rep, The Public Theater)
• Choir Boy (Royal Court, Manhattan Theatre Club, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
• American Trade, an adaptation of a Restoration comedy for young people (RSC)
• Wig Out! (developed at Sundance Theatre Lab produced in New York by the Vineyard Theatre and in London by the Royal Court)

The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy

Main article: The Brother/Sister Plays

• The Brothers Size (simultaneously premiered in New York at The Public Theater, in association with the Foundry Theatre, and in London at the Young Vic, where it was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement at an Affiliated Theatre)
• In The Red And Brown Water (winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, produced at the Alliance Theatre and the Young Vic)
• Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet

Other plays

• Without/Sin
• Run, Mourner, Run (adapted from Randall Kenan's short story), both of which premiered at Yale Cabaret. He directed Hamlet for the RSC's Young Shakespeare program for GableStage in Miami.

In the summer of 2006, McCraney, Catherine Filloux and Joe Sutton wrote The Breach, a play on Katrina, the Gulf, and our nation, commissioned by Southern Rep in New Orleans, where it premiered in August 2007 to mark the second anniversary of the tragedy in New Orleans. The Breach also played at Seattle Rep in the winter of 2007.

Other projects

• High Flying Bird, a script based on the 2011 NBA lockout starring André Holland, who starred in Moonlight, directed by Steven Soderbergh. It premiered on Netflix on February 8, 2019.
• In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, an autobiographical drama school project that is the inspiration for the 2016 film Moonlight.
• An adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2013, which puts the play in an 18th-century Caribbean setting. Reviews were mixed.
• David Makes Man a 2019 television series on the OWN network.

Forthcoming projects

Commissions for the Donmar Warehouse and Berkeley Rep.

Awards and honors

• 2007 Whiting Award
• 2008 London's Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright
• 2009 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award for The Brothers Size
• 2009 Steinberg Playwright Award
• 2013 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize
• 2013 MacArthur Fellowship
• 2017 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay: Moonlight
• 2017 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Awards American Playwright in Mid-Career
• 2017 United States Artists Fellowship
• 2019 40 Under 40 List by Connecticut Magazine

External links

• Profile and Production History at The Whiting Foundation