Terence Anthony

Terence Anthony

Terence Anthony is a playwright, artist, screenwriter and communications specialist based in Oakland, CA. He has been awarded writing fellowships to the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation. Terence's plays include The House of the Negro Insane (world premiere, Contemporary American Theatre Conference in 2022),...
Terence Anthony is a playwright, artist, screenwriter and communications specialist based in Oakland, CA. He has been awarded writing fellowships to the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation. Terence's plays include The House of the Negro Insane (world premiere, Contemporary American Theatre Conference in 2022), Burners (nominated for four 2017 Ovation Awards), Euphrates (Max K. Lerner Playwriting Fellowship), and Tombolo (Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference). Terence’s work has been seen at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in San Francisco, PlayPenn Conference in Philadelphia, the Chicago Dramatists in Chicago, the RADAR L.A. Festival in Los Angeles, and the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha.

Plays

  • Godspeed
    It’s 1865 and slavery has been abolished in Texas. A former slave named Godspeed, who escaped to Mexico a decade earlier, returns to the Lone Star State with a six-shooter, one bullet, and vengeance on her mind. Godspeed sets out on a perilous journey across Texas with Peklai, the Mexican woman who taught her to shoot, and Nelson, the bedraggled drunk who used to be her master. Godspeed casts light on an often-...
    It’s 1865 and slavery has been abolished in Texas. A former slave named Godspeed, who escaped to Mexico a decade earlier, returns to the Lone Star State with a six-shooter, one bullet, and vengeance on her mind. Godspeed sets out on a perilous journey across Texas with Peklai, the Mexican woman who taught her to shoot, and Nelson, the bedraggled drunk who used to be her master. Godspeed casts light on an often-ignored chapter in the post-slavery history of the U.S. while taking the audience on an epic, escapist theatrical experience.
  • The House of the Negro Insane
    The year is 1935 and the Central State Hospital is one of seven psychiatric facilities in the U.S. built exclusively to care for “insane and idiotic negroes,” where the homeless and downtrodden are housed alongside the criminally insane and diseased. Attius builds coffins for the hospital where he has been locked up for years, but when two new patients ask him to help them escape Attius dares to dream of a life beyond his confines.
  • Burners
    The future. A resistance movement rising from the slums of the impoverished masses fight back against high-tech drones and genetically enhanced soldiers using “Burners;” humans bio-engineered to become living bombs. As war rages, a woman named Liv arrives in a junk depot in a war-torn industrial zone seeking Nix, a smuggler who can get her past the barricades and into the Protectorate. But both have hidden...
    The future. A resistance movement rising from the slums of the impoverished masses fight back against high-tech drones and genetically enhanced soldiers using “Burners;” humans bio-engineered to become living bombs. As war rages, a woman named Liv arrives in a junk depot in a war-torn industrial zone seeking Nix, a smuggler who can get her past the barricades and into the Protectorate. But both have hidden agendas, and when drone bombs trap them inside the depot and their true identities are revealed, Liv and Nix are plunged into a violent conflict that takes on many levels.
  • Tombolo
    Italy, 1944. As the Allies battle the S.S. and Fascist forces across the Italian countryside, African American deserters, Italian criminals and German traitors find refuge in the swamp of Tombolo. When Madison -- a black war hero trying to hide from his past -- rescues a young Italian partisan, fragile alliances within the outlaw camp are put to the test.