Farah Lawal Harris

Farah Lawal Harris (she/her/hers) is a first-generation Nigerian playwright, actress, director, poet, and mother. She is the Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater and Producing Playwright with The Welders in Washington, DC, and recently had the honor of being included on the 2020 Kilroys List for her world-premiere play, Silence is Violence. Farah is currently a member of theatreWashington's Advisory Board, co-chair of the annual DC Theatre Summit, and a core member of Not in Our House DC. She is also a proud co-founder of the Washington, DC-based theatre companies, The Saartijie Project, and Wild Women Theatre, and a three-time individual artist grant recipient from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Farah deeply believes in the power of black women and their...

Farah Lawal Harris (she/her/hers) is a first-generation Nigerian playwright, actress, director, poet, and mother. She is the Artistic Director of Young Playwrights’ Theater and Producing Playwright with The Welders in Washington, DC, and recently had the honor of being included on the 2020 Kilroys List for her world-premiere play, Silence is Violence. Farah is currently a member of theatreWashington's Advisory Board, co-chair of the annual DC Theatre Summit, and a core member of Not in Our House DC. She is also a proud co-founder of the Washington, DC-based theatre companies, The Saartijie Project, and Wild Women Theatre, and a three-time individual artist grant recipient from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Farah deeply believes in the power of black women and their stories and aims to make people feel less alone through her art, which is her activism. She calls her work “black girl magical realism” and her plays are deeply personal, raw, poetic, funny, and hip-hop-infused with a focus on social justice.

Her work has been performed at Arena Stage (The 51st State), Round House Theatre (Homebound), The Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage New Play Festival, Capital Fringe Festival, Theater Alliance, Convergence Theatre, DC Black Theatre Festival, the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference, and multiple universities along the East Coast. Her one-act play, America’s Wives, was produced by the Capital Fringe Festival in their inaugural Writing Refreshed series in 2018. Her play, Black Girl, Black Pearl, is slated to have its world premiere with The Welders in fall 2022.

Scripts

We Wear the Mask

by Farah Lawal Harris

Synopsis

In the third episode of Round House Theatre's web series, "Homebound," Craig and his niece, Chinna, find a new way to connect with one another in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and find that they have more in common than both of them realized.

In the third episode of Round House Theatre's web series, "Homebound," Craig and his niece, Chinna, find a new way to connect with one another in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and find that they have more in common than both of them realized.

Silence is Violence: Mothering While Black

by Farah Lawal Harris

Synopsis

Silence is Violence: Mothering While Black is an installment of Young Playwrights' Theater's Silence is Violence performance series that produces dramatic performances based on issues that matter and speak to young people. For this play, five young, Black mothers who participated in Sasha Bruce Youthwork's Olaiya's Cradle program wrote and orated stories, poems, and monologues about their experiences that were...

Silence is Violence: Mothering While Black is an installment of Young Playwrights' Theater's Silence is Violence performance series that produces dramatic performances based on issues that matter and speak to young people. For this play, five young, Black mothers who participated in Sasha Bruce Youthwork's Olaiya's Cradle program wrote and orated stories, poems, and monologues about their experiences that were then shaped into an explorative, mixed-media choreopoem by YPT Artistic Director Farah Lawal Harris.

America's Wives

by Farah Lawal Harris

Synopsis

ONE-ACT: One Older Wife. One Younger Wife. One Bald Eagle. And Absent America. Inspired by a Nigerian Folktale, this poetic script explores identity, love and greed in today’s world. Delve into what it means to be faithful and moral to yourself and to others, in a time of tremendous change.

ONE-ACT: One Older Wife. One Younger Wife. One Bald Eagle. And Absent America. Inspired by a Nigerian Folktale, this poetic script explores identity, love and greed in today’s world. Delve into what it means to be faithful and moral to yourself and to others, in a time of tremendous change.

Black Girl, Black Pearl

by Farah Lawal Harris

Synopsis

ONE-ACT: In this poetic, heart-wrenching, empowering drama, drawing on ancient Greek drama traditions, 25-year-old Danah was raped on her birthday. Seeking freedom and healing, she engages in a pattern of public nudity as The 'Round-the-Way Girls, a “Greek Chorus” of narrators and revolving supporting characters lead us through Danah’s journey to empowerment.

ONE-ACT: In this poetic, heart-wrenching, empowering drama, drawing on ancient Greek drama traditions, 25-year-old Danah was raped on her birthday. Seeking freedom and healing, she engages in a pattern of public nudity as The 'Round-the-Way Girls, a “Greek Chorus” of narrators and revolving supporting characters lead us through Danah’s journey to empowerment.

Rachel Resists

by Farah Lawal Harris

Synopsis

ONE-ACT: This adaptation was inspired by the 1916 melodrama, Rachel, by Angelina Weld Grimké. Rachel was originally produced by the NAACP in 1916 in Washington, DC and is known to be the earliest surviving full-length play by a black woman.

Rachel Resists imagines the same characters as they would be today if they lived in Washington, DC. Instead of dealing with lynching, the family battles the effects of...

ONE-ACT: This adaptation was inspired by the 1916 melodrama, Rachel, by Angelina Weld Grimké. Rachel was originally produced by the NAACP in 1916 in Washington, DC and is known to be the earliest surviving full-length play by a black woman.

Rachel Resists imagines the same characters as they would be today if they lived in Washington, DC. Instead of dealing with lynching, the family battles the effects of police brutality, being constantly stimulated and traumatized by the media, poverty, as well as a woman’s right to choose.

Love Lives Here

by Farah Lawal Harris

Synopsis

10-MINUTE: A lesbian couple discovers that violence could be a way to heal their wounds.

10-MINUTE: A lesbian couple discovers that violence could be a way to heal their wounds.