Khari Wyatt

Khari Wyatt

Khari Wyatt is the descendant of runaway slaves and inner-city America with its adversities, tragedies and triumphs; the son of high school sweethearts: a mother who is an artist and a father who courageously moved his young family from the rust-belt to our Nation's Capital to find a better life; the grandson of men who wore blue collars in auto plants and on railroad trains; the grandson of women who...
Khari Wyatt is the descendant of runaway slaves and inner-city America with its adversities, tragedies and triumphs; the son of high school sweethearts: a mother who is an artist and a father who courageously moved his young family from the rust-belt to our Nation's Capital to find a better life; the grandson of men who wore blue collars in auto plants and on railroad trains; the grandson of women who taught Sunday school and waitressed in greasy spoons. He is a writer.

His play, Some Type of Ecstasy, will be published by Next Stage Press in 2024. The play was a semifinalist for the Ashland New Play Festival, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, and received a concert reading at the Morgan-Wixson Theater New Play Festival. Recently, he was a finalist for New Dramatists Resident Company and his pitch, Brother Wonderful's Paradise, was a semifinalist for the Geffen Playhouse Writers’ Room. His play, The One, was selected for development in The Road Theatre Company's Under Construction 4 Playwrights Group and will have its public reading in 2024. His play, Speakeasy, is a semifinalist for the 2024 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, was chosen for Moving Arts Season’s Readings new play reading series and Antaeus Theatre Company’s Lab Results Reading Series. He was selected to write and develop his play, Starchild, in the Circle X Theatre Company Evolving Playwrights Group. He was one of eleven writers of #While We Breathe: A Night of Creative Protest, a streaming theatrical event produced by Brian Moreland and Arvind Ethan David. His audio plays, “Zip Code 90011 South Central Los Angeles: Speakeasy” and “Zip Code 91331 Pacoima: Gold & Shine” were commissioned and produced by Antaeus Theatre Company for its Zip Code Plays podcast. Moving Arts, Antaeus Theatre Company, Chalk Repertory Theatre as well as the DC Black Theatre Festival are among the organizations that have hosted his plays for readings and workshops. His ten-minute play, “Ingredients,” was produced as part of the Moving Arts- Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Night at the Museum.

His television literary work has placed in various competitions including, Disney/ABC Writers Program, Sony Pictures Entertainment Diversity Writers Program, AMC One-Hour Drama competition and Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition among others. Some of the fellowships and grants he has received came from MacDowell, the Guy Hanks/Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program and the Panavision New Filmmaker Equipment Grant.

Wyatt is an alumnus of Howard University and earned an MFA in Film from Columbia University in the City of New York. He is a member of Moving Arts, The Playwrights Union, and the Independent Writers' Caucus.

Plays

  • Some Type of Ecstasy by Khari Wyatt
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Race, poverty + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Race, poverty, Plasma, Marginlization, blood
    At an inner-city Los Angeles blood plasma donation center, a multi-cultural, multi-generational crew of donors define family, expose the boundaries of capitalism, trust, and racial inequity as they wrestle with haunting pasts, the hard-scrabble present, and uncertain futures.
  • Speakeasy by Khari Wyatt
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–6
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    Genre: drama, immersive + 2 more
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    Keyword: Black period play, Los Angeles
    Genre: drama, immersive, period, political
    Keyword: Black period play, Los Angeles
    In 1956, after some time away, Leon Ivy returns home from a sojourn in Paris with a finished novel, a publisher, and big plans for his future — but times have changed along Central Avenue and his wife, Bird, and her new business partner, Daddy August, have enacted secret plans of their own. What are the costs of leaving home and what is the price of fighting for what you believe in?
  • Neon Boogie by Khari Wyatt
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    6–7
    ·
    Genre: drama, period + 1 more
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    Keyword: 1970s, music + 7 more
    Genre: drama, period, political
    Keyword: 1970s, music, Black liberation, prison, gender, Policing, civil rights, grief, Relationships
    1970. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. has birthed the rise of Black revolutionaries. The National Organization for Women is poking the conscience of the patriarchy. The Beatles break-up, and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin die tragically weeks apart. 28-year-old Neon June, the bold, calculating songstress, is on the hunt to get her career back on track after being derailed by a stint in prison....
    1970. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. has birthed the rise of Black revolutionaries. The National Organization for Women is poking the conscience of the patriarchy. The Beatles break-up, and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin die tragically weeks apart. 28-year-old Neon June, the bold, calculating songstress, is on the hunt to get her career back on track after being derailed by a stint in prison.

    Neon, the daughter of a slain civil rights activist, runs up against the racial and sexual climate of the times. A woman who wants to write and produce her own L.P.? That’s crazy talk. Ava, Neon’s manager, cautions her to get past her difficult reputation before turning the industry off with demands. Even Neon’s fiancé, Lawrence, a musician and Vietnam veteran, is doubtful. But Neon has a plan: she’ll start her own record company, write and produce her record, and declare to the world she’s bigger than it wants to allow her to be.

    However, like all plans, Neon’s is tinted with risk. Traumatized by her prison life, haunted by her family legacy, tortured by the boxes society designed for her, is Neon ready to pay the cost of independence?
  • Ingredients by Khari Wyatt
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: art, self-realization + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: art, self-realization, blackmen, mechanics, Chinese Robes
    Two, Black auto-mechanics, delve into their identities and what makes a man on a visit to an art gallery exhibit.
  • Zip Code 90011: South Central Los Angeles - Speakeasy by Khari Wyatt
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3–4
    ·
    Genre: drama, period + 1 more
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    Keyword: 1950s, civil rights + 3 more
    Genre: drama, period, radio drama
    Keyword: 1950s, civil rights, marriage, Awakening, Night-Life
    In 1956 Leon Ivy returns home from a sojourn in Paris with a finished novel, a publisher, and big plans for his future — but times have changed along Central Avenue and his wife Bird and her new business partner, Daddy August, have enacted secret plans of their own. What are the costs of leaving home and what is the price of fighting for what you believe in?