Micah Ariel Watson

Micah Ariel Watson

Micah Ariel Watson is a filmmaker and playwright, originally from Wichita, Kansas. She is a recent MFA graduate of NYU's Dramatic Writing Program.

Her film 40th & State (2018), was a 2018 official selection of BlackStar Film Festival, the 2019 Best Documentary winner of Black Web Fest, and screened at MOCA in Los Angeles and McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, and Toronto...
Micah Ariel Watson is a filmmaker and playwright, originally from Wichita, Kansas. She is a recent MFA graduate of NYU's Dramatic Writing Program.

Her film 40th & State (2018), was a 2018 official selection of BlackStar Film Festival, the 2019 Best Documentary winner of Black Web Fest, and screened at MOCA in Los Angeles and McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, and Toronto International Film Festival Cinematheque in 2019. Her film Molasses (2018) is the 2018 Grand Prize Winner of Poe Film Festival and a 2019 official selection of Richmond International Film Festival and Black Web Fest. Her films Edges (2016) and Educated Feet (2017) screened at the Virginia Film Festival.

Micah is the 2018 recipient of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Undergraduate Playwriting Award and is a KCACTF Lorraine Hansberry Distinguished Playwright for her full-length play Canaan (2018). She is also the winner of the 2018 KCACTF Gary Garrison 10-Minute Play Award, and the winner of the 2019 Theater Masters Playwrights Lab for her ten-minute play Will Be Live (2018). She received the Clay E. Delauney Memorial Award for her plays Wake Up Music! (2017) and Canaan (2018). Micah was a 2019 Sundance Theater Lab Finalist and a 2019 O’Neill Center National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist for Wake Up Music! Her play Alaiyo is the 2020 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, Hip-Hop Creator Award, Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, and received distinction for the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. Alaiyo was also 2019 a finalist for the Leah Ryan Playwrights prize.

Recently, she is the writer/director of BET Her’s The Waiting Room: The Story of Nadia. Micah was selected for Tribeca Film Festival’s 2020 N.O.W. Creator’s Market. Her web-series Black Enough, of which she is the writer, director, and executive producer is currently streaming on YouTube and is an official selection of the Richmond International Film Festival, Miami Web Fest, and the National Black Film Festival in 2020. She is in pre-production for the second season of the series.

Micah is a 2018 graduate of the University of Virginia (UVA), where she majored in Drama and the African-American and African Studies Distinguished Majors Program. While at UVA, she was the founder, producer, and director of the annual theatrical production, The Black Monologues, and established a community of Black graduate and undergraduate artists. She has interned and worked with TVOne, Jesse Collins Entertainment, BET and in production for filmmakers Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena Harold.

Plays

  • Alaiyo
    When she realizes that she's in love with her best friend Kofi, hopeless romantic Ariel sets out on a quest to tell him how she feels...and make a pilgrimage to the shores of Africa. Inspired by A RAISIN IN THE SUN, Ariel seeks to heal a 400 year old wound through her journey toward selfhood. As she grapples with the gray space of being neither fully African nor fully American, she uncovers the darkest...
    When she realizes that she's in love with her best friend Kofi, hopeless romantic Ariel sets out on a quest to tell him how she feels...and make a pilgrimage to the shores of Africa. Inspired by A RAISIN IN THE SUN, Ariel seeks to heal a 400 year old wound through her journey toward selfhood. As she grapples with the gray space of being neither fully African nor fully American, she uncovers the darkest parts of herself and the sweet spots in her Black American identity. This choreopoem samples the old and makes space for the new as Ariel sails to Ghana to confess her love to Kofi.
  • Canaan
    During the one of the most tumultuous years in American history, Canaan tells the coming-of-age story of a teenager and his community, caught between love, activism, and spirituality. In 1968, generations collide as Washington, D.C. neighbors must decide where there loyalties lie when the Civil Rights Movement takes a turn.
  • Wake Up Music!
    What do we do when tragedy strikes? In the wake of a brutal act of police violence, Amil must decide whether to tell the truth or remain silent after witnessing the event. As he chases his post graduation dreams he must overcome obstacles of love, duty, and control. "Wake Up Music" is a requiem for a community in mourning, told through Hip Hop and West-African storytelling traditions. 
  • Will Be Live
    Imani, Clara, and Mia bask fully in their womanhood after a party. But in an instant, joyful reminiscence becomes a plea for the value of Black lives. Will Be Live tells an all too familiar story of sisterhood, memory, and poetry in the face of struggle.