Dominic Taylor

Dominic Taylor

Dominic Taylor has been a practicing theatre artist for over 30 years, and has worked as a writer, director, curator of theatre and live performance events.

He developed his play HYPE HERO (King Patch) at the National Playwrights’ Conference in 2012. It was subsequently produced at Brown University. His play I Wish You Love will be produced this summer at the Ensemble Theatre in Houston. This...
Dominic Taylor has been a practicing theatre artist for over 30 years, and has worked as a writer, director, curator of theatre and live performance events.

He developed his play HYPE HERO (King Patch) at the National Playwrights’ Conference in 2012. It was subsequently produced at Brown University. His play I Wish You Love will be produced this summer at the Ensemble Theatre in Houston. This work was produced at The Kennedy Center, Penumbra Theatre, and Hartford Stage in 2011. His plays Wedding Dance and Personal History are both published by Playscripts.com. His play UpCity Service(s) is published by Broadway Play Publishing. It is also included in an anthology edited by Mac Wellman entitled – SEVEN MORE DIFFERENT PLAYS.

He has directed a variety of theatre projects including the opera Fresh Faust at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, The Negroes Burial Ground at The Kitchen, Destiny and Uppa Creek at Dixon Place, and Ride the Rhythm in the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. He reimagined and restaged the Black Nativity for Penumbra Theatre Company. Most recently he directed Marita Bonner’s Harlem Renaissance play Purple Flower in Boston at the Factory Theatre. His next directing project will be a project entitled Ice, Man which uses the aesthetic of Neo-Blackness, to examine a canonical American work.

He is the former Associate Artistic Director of Penumbra Theatre Company. He is presently the Associate Artistic Director of America-In-Play. This New York City based organization is predicated on engaging playwrights and theatre artists with early American Drama. This group recently produced A Time Traveler’s Trip to Niagara at the Hudson Guild.

He has worked with Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Public Theatre, The Kitchen, Dixon Place, New York Theatre Workshop, Crossroads Theater, The Kennedy Center, Rites and Reasons Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre among others.

He was a participant in the Black Theatre Summit Convened by August Wilson at Dartmouth College in 1998. There he helped construct the paper on Aesthetics. This summer he will participate in the Emory University sponsored institute titled “Black Aesthetics and African Centered Cultural Expressions: Sacred Systems in the Nexus between Cultural Studies, Religion and Philosophy.” There he will work on his performance piece Voice’s From Harper’s Ferry.

He has been awarded grants from The Golden Fund, Theatre Communications Group, The Jerome Foundation, The MacDowell Foundation, The Dramatists Guild, The Illinois Arts Council, The Connecticut Commission on the Arts, The International Theatre Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation as well as other organizations.

He is an alumni member of New Dramatists. He is a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop and an Affiliated Artist with Sleeping Weazel. He holds a Bachelors' as well as a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Brown University. He is also on the Board for The Givens Foundation for African-American Literature. He is represented by Pat McLaughlin with Beacon Artists.

He s a Professor of Theater at UCLA School of Theater Film and Television .

Plays

  • My Daughter Lula
    Clay Williams (a Black man) and Anne Fitzgerald (a White woman) are people of a certain age who meet in a waiting area of a hospital, and strike up a friendship. As their relationship grows, Anne’s daughter (White Lula) is not so certain that love has no limits. Clay’s estranged daughter, (Black Lula) is a law professor looking for the appropriate language for her bid for national office. Her language will...
    Clay Williams (a Black man) and Anne Fitzgerald (a White woman) are people of a certain age who meet in a waiting area of a hospital, and strike up a friendship. As their relationship grows, Anne’s daughter (White Lula) is not so certain that love has no limits. Clay’s estranged daughter, (Black Lula) is a law professor looking for the appropriate language for her bid for national office. Her language will sound familiar. This play looks at how we as a society are nurtured by our institutions and does this drastically change our nature. And who pays the price for this change?
  • HYPE HERO (King Patch)
    Hype Hero (King Patch) In the not too distant future, in an urban center in America, welfare has been privatized. In this society, we have people who must wear patches, people who wear badges and the celebrities and politicians who do not need to carry any additional identification. Do we ever ask a question about this set-up?