DGI INSTRUCTOR | PLAYS IN PROGRESS MENTOR | DGI SUBCOMMITTEE

CHISA HUTCHINSON

Their DGI Teaching History includes Writing Workshop: Core Skills and Writing Workshop II.

Chisa is also a Plays in Progress Mentor. Her mentor interests: people of color, social critique, linear narrative. Request Chisa as a PIP Mentor.

CHISA HUTCHINSON: Having never even seen a play until high school, Chisa caught up mighty fast by earning a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from Vassar College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has since been commissioned to write several plays and has even written a few just for kicks, includingDirt Rich (SummerStage), She Like Girls (the Lark Play Development Center, the Ohio Theatre, NJPAC), This is Not the Play (Mad Dog Theater Company, Cleveland Public Theater), Sex on Sunday (the Lark Play Development Center, the BE Company, Trustus Theatre), Tunde's Trumpet (SummerStage, BOOM Arts), The Subject (Atlantic Theater Company, Playwrights’ Foundation, Victory Gardens, Partial Comfort, and Rattlestick Theater) , Mama's Gonna Buy You (WorkShop Theater Company, Inge Center for the Arts),  Somebody's Daughter (Cherry Lane, Second Stage), Alondra Was Here (the Wild Project), and Dead & Breathing (the Lark Play Development Center, Contemporary American Theater Festival, National Black Theatre).

Chisa has been a Lark Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Humanities Fellow, a Resident at the William Inge Center for the Arts, a staff writer for the Blue Man Group and an ensemble member of the New York NeoFuturists. She has been a two-time finalist for the Weissberger Award, a finalist for the Heideman and a finalist for the highly coveted PONY Fellowship.  She actually wins awards sometimes, too, like the GLAAD Award she got for her play, She Like Girls, the John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting, a Lilly Award for Most Outstanding Playwright at the Beginning of Her Career, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, the Paul Green Award, a Helen Merrill Award, a Lanford Wilson Award, and most recently a Thom Thomas Award. 

Chisa just finished her residency as a Tow Fellow at Second Stage Theatre where she premiered her play, Somebody's Daughter. She is a proud fourth-year resident at New Dramatists, teaches creative writing at the University of Delaware, and is about to delve into the world of TV on a project for A&E/Lifetime.