Zola Dee, a playwright, screenwriter, and performer, weaves stories that delve deep into the complexities of home & displacement, Black Americana, African diasporic religions, queerness, and imagining freer worlds for the Black collective body. Her most notable work GUNSHOT MEDLEY: Part 1 was Ovation Award recommended and published in Routledge’s Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. Her plays have been seen and/or developed with The National Black Theatre of Harlem, Skylight Theater, East West Players, Red Eye Theater, Rogue Machine Theater, Collaborative Artists Bloc, Hi-Arts, CalArts Center for New Performance, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, and Antaeus Theatre Company. Her plays include: Smile, Goddamnit, Smile; Rain, River, Ocean; On Freeing Fire and Father...
Zola Dee, a playwright, screenwriter, and performer, weaves stories that delve deep into the complexities of home & displacement, Black Americana, African diasporic religions, queerness, and imagining freer worlds for the Black collective body. Her most notable work GUNSHOT MEDLEY: Part 1 was Ovation Award recommended and published in Routledge’s Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. Her plays have been seen and/or developed with The National Black Theatre of Harlem, Skylight Theater, East West Players, Red Eye Theater, Rogue Machine Theater, Collaborative Artists Bloc, Hi-Arts, CalArts Center for New Performance, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, and Antaeus Theatre Company. Her plays include: Smile, Goddamnit, Smile; Rain, River, Ocean; On Freeing Fire and Father, Father. Beyond the stage, Dee's creative vision extends to the screen, where she is developing works for film & television. Among her works in development are Lola, Lowlands, and an untitled feature film inspired by her time in Berlin.
Zola is currently a 2025 - 2028 Jerome Hill Fellow and one of the I AM Soul National Black Theater of Harlem resident playwrights. Other accomplishments include: Playwrights’ Center’s Jerome Fellow 2022-2023 & Many Voices Fellow 2021-2022, CTG Writer’s Workshop 2019-2020 , 2017-2018 Core Apprentice at The Playwrights’ Center, 2018 Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights Diversity Fellow and the Calarts R&P Black American Dialects Fellow. In addition to her writing endeavors, she has provided writing consultation services to Meow Wolf and other companies based in Hollywood.