Lydia Valentine

Lydia Valentine

Lydia Valentine is a poet, playwright, and educator who believes in the power of good, the
healing capacity of writing and reading, and the necessity of the Oxford comma. A passionate
advocate for equity and social justice, proud mom, and card-carrying Blerd, Lydia grew up in
Aliquippa, Pa, a small, steel mill town north of Pittsburgh, where she spent many hours of her
youth at B...
Lydia Valentine is a poet, playwright, and educator who believes in the power of good, the
healing capacity of writing and reading, and the necessity of the Oxford comma. A passionate
advocate for equity and social justice, proud mom, and card-carrying Blerd, Lydia grew up in
Aliquippa, Pa, a small, steel mill town north of Pittsburgh, where she spent many hours of her
youth at B.F. Jones Library. She now lives, reads, and writes in another gritty city, Tacoma, WA,
where she has been runner-up for Tacoma Poet Laureate twice. Lydia has recently completed her
first play, Aliquippa, which has had readings at empathos company, and has been Assistant
Director and Dramaturg for play productions with Toy Boat Theatre Company, empathos
company, UW-Tacoma, and Tacoma Little Theatre. She has recently been appointed as the 2021-2023 City of Tacoma Poet Laureate.

Plays

  • Aliquippa by Lydia Valentine
    Recommendations: 6
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–6
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: family, black lives matter + 2 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: family, black lives matter, mother and daughter, Black women
    The play centers around three generations of a Black women who provide the foundation of a family in Aliquippa, PA, a former booming steel town just north of Pittsburgh. Past events have rendered the women wary of each other in a way that is very much buried in how they behave towards one another. Love is all they have left after that, and it’s allowed them to forgive each other, and they struggle mightily to...
    The play centers around three generations of a Black women who provide the foundation of a family in Aliquippa, PA, a former booming steel town just north of Pittsburgh. Past events have rendered the women wary of each other in a way that is very much buried in how they behave towards one another. Love is all they have left after that, and it’s allowed them to forgive each other, and they struggle mightily to remember that and produce it daily. The unknown history keeps the audience guessing, but as we near the truth, we are able to understand how a terrible accident in the past could have been both avoided and possible at the same time. Isaac, the prodigal son of the family, cannot extricate himself from history, and that the legacy of it repeats itself in the era of Travon Martin and Tamir Rice is all the more tragic. While the ghosts of those young men and all the others in recent history walk through the play, it never stoops to being didactic. The elements of daily life always serve to illustrate something bigger at work that is beyond anything the women can control as they struggle mainly to forgive the world for all the damage it has done to them.