India Nicole Burton

India Nicole Burton is a Chicago director, playwright, devisor and producer. She is a native of Akron, OH. She received her MFA in creative writing from The University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2022. India founded Ma’Sue Productions, an African American theatre company located in Akron, Ohio in 2011. She has directed, produced, and performed in several of Ma’Sue’s plays and was co-artistic director until 2015. .India’s directing credits include for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Heads Up Productions), The Laramie Project (Heads Up Productions), Daybreak’s Children (Ma’Sue Productions), A Happening on Imperial (Ma’Sue Productions) Fire on the Water (Cleveland Public Theatre, co-directed; Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation (in development at Cleveland...

India Nicole Burton is a Chicago director, playwright, devisor and producer. She is a native of Akron, OH. She received her MFA in creative writing from The University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2022. India founded Ma’Sue Productions, an African American theatre company located in Akron, Ohio in 2011. She has directed, produced, and performed in several of Ma’Sue’s plays and was co-artistic director until 2015. .India’s directing credits include for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Heads Up Productions), The Laramie Project (Heads Up Productions), Daybreak’s Children (Ma’Sue Productions), A Happening on Imperial (Ma’Sue Productions) Fire on the Water (Cleveland Public Theatre, co-directed; Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation (in development at Cleveland Public Theatre), “inside out” by Francisca Da Silveira (Company One, as part of their C1: Inauguration project) Welcome to the Taj Mahal ( Motel) By Riti Sachdeva, The Playwrights Center ( Workshop) and Can I Touch it? (Cleveland Public Theatre) and Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation ( Cleveland Public Theatre.) India’s assistant directing credits include the 2014 production of The Color Purple at Karamu House, A Brownsville song (b-side for tray) at Dobama Theatre, Cleveland Public Theatre’s Barbecue and Good at Heart, featured in BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival. India is a board member for New World Performance Lab, a two-year recipient of the National New Play Network ( NNPN) Producer in Residence program for Cleveland Public Theatre and a 2021 recipient of the NNPN Bridge Program Grant Award. She also received a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere for her Choreopoem entitled Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation. Panther Women was Jeff recommended in Chicago 2023. India was also a cast member of American Dreams, which was nominated for a Drama League Award in 2021. She was a Room in the Mu 2021/22 Fellow at The Karamu House inc. India is Currently the Associate Producer/ Teaching Artist at Pegasus Theatre and a Teaching Artist a Court Theatre.

Scripts

The Witching Hour

by India Nicole Burton

Cast Size

7

Genre

comedy,

drama,

period,

political

The Witching Hour, it the first play of a Trilogy that chronicles the linage of o an African American family with supernatural powers entitled: The Ascension Plays. On a dark, stormy 1940 night, Sipsy arrives at her Aunt Pepsi’s storefront beaten and battered and near death. Her arrival brews trouble bringing family secrets to light and Pepsi is forced to reveal that the family possesses supernatural gifts....

The Witching Hour, it the first play of a Trilogy that chronicles the linage of o an African American family with supernatural powers entitled: The Ascension Plays. On a dark, stormy 1940 night, Sipsy arrives at her Aunt Pepsi’s storefront beaten and battered and near death. Her arrival brews trouble bringing family secrets to light and Pepsi is forced to reveal that the family possesses supernatural gifts. What will the family do with their inherited gifts?

Safronia's Daughter

by India Nicole Burton

Cast Size

8

Genre

comedy,

drama,

melodrama,

period

Safronia’s Daughter is the second piece of work in a trilogy of plays about the linage of an African American family that possess supernatural powers. This family’s ancestry voyaged over to America as kidnappee’s, through Middle Passage Slave Trade, in1840. Set on the Rufus Plantation in the Antebellum South, IN 1890, Safronia’s Daughter is viewed through the vantage point of Safronia, who is conjured up from...

Safronia’s Daughter is the second piece of work in a trilogy of plays about the linage of an African American family that possess supernatural powers. This family’s ancestry voyaged over to America as kidnappee’s, through Middle Passage Slave Trade, in1840. Set on the Rufus Plantation in the Antebellum South, IN 1890, Safronia’s Daughter is viewed through the vantage point of Safronia, who is conjured up from the dead by her eccentric, over the top, queer, son, “Jinx’. Jinx has the power to see the dead. Safronia narrates the play as we watch her eldest daughter Bee, try to keep the family secret of possessing supernatural gifts, while working as sharecroppers so closely to the Rufus family. However, trouble stirs when her fraternal twin brothers “Fool Boy” affair with the lily, white, Mistress of the plantation, Madam Edwina, may or may not lead to her being impregnated by him.

The Light Post

by India Nicole Burton

Cast Size

5

Genre

comedy,

drama

The Light Post follows the story of the McClain Family through the vantage point of Randi McClain.
A lesbian Black woman, who is questioning her identity as Queer women in the world and her
relationships with predominately white women. At the same time, she Is dealing with the patriarch of
the family, Kevin McClain, who is losing his mind and the family bar, in an attempt to get him to sell
his bar to white...

The Light Post follows the story of the McClain Family through the vantage point of Randi McClain.
A lesbian Black woman, who is questioning her identity as Queer women in the world and her
relationships with predominately white women. At the same time, she Is dealing with the patriarch of
the family, Kevin McClain, who is losing his mind and the family bar, in an attempt to get him to sell
his bar to white businessowners. Mr. McClain cannot seem to part ways with the bar primarily
because he believes his dead grandson (Cecile), who was murdered by police, spirit lives in the
jukebox he inherited from his father. Things start to climax when a mysterious white woman wanders
into The Light Post (Bar), on one of the biggest snowstorms in Riverdale Michigan’s history.

Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation

by India Nicole Burton

1

Cast Size

7

Genre

biography,

docudrama/historic,

drama,

experimental,

immersive,

movement/physical,

political

Panther Women, An Army for the Liberation, Through the lens of an African American women who has decided to take a journey to understand herself more, the play uses the stories of 3 prominent Women, who were apart of the Black Panther Party and Liberation movement of the 60’s and 70’s. The play uses their stories as a catalyst to explore the dilemma’s, obstacles and joy of the African American woman in general...

Panther Women, An Army for the Liberation, Through the lens of an African American women who has decided to take a journey to understand herself more, the play uses the stories of 3 prominent Women, who were apart of the Black Panther Party and Liberation movement of the 60’s and 70’s. The play uses their stories as a catalyst to explore the dilemma’s, obstacles and joy of the African American woman in general. The play is an high energy, movement piece with poetry, monologues, dance and song.