Darren
Canady hails from Topeka, KS.
His work has been produced at the Alliance
Theatre (Atlanta, GA), Congo Square Theater (Chicago, IL), Horizon Theatre
(Atlanta, GA), the Old Vic Theatre (London, UK), M Ensemble (Miami, FL),
Milwaukee Repertory Theater (Milwaukee, WI) and others.
His awards include the
Alliance Theater's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award, Chicago’s Black
Excellence Award, the Black Theatre Alliance Award, and the American Theatre
Critics Association’s Osborn Award.
His work has been recognized in the
Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Competition, the Theodore Ward Prize for
African-American Playwrights, and the James W. Rodgers Competition. His work
has been developed at numerous festivals including the O'Neill Theater Center’s
National Playwright's Conference.
How Theo Changed His Name, an opera
for which Darren provided the libretto, was premiered through the Pittsburgh
(PA) Symphony Orchestra. His play You’re
Invited appeared in The Best American
Short Plays 2010-2011. His work has been seen or developed at the Quo
Vadimus Arts’ ID America Festival, the Fremont Centre Theatre, Premiere Stages,
the BE Company, Penumbra Theatre, and American Blues Theater.
Darren is an alum
of Carnegie Mellon University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts
and the Juilliard School. He is a former member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy
Strelsin New Writers Group, and a past participant in the T.S. Eliot US/UK
Exchange. He is an artistic affiliate with American Blues Theater and Congo
Square Theatre. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Kansas.
