Writer, Scholar, Artist
Dr. Ayshia Mackie-Stephenson is a performance studies scholar, intimacy director, and an award-winning writer and educator from Brooklyn, NY. With an MFA from CalArts and a PhD from UMass Amherst, she uses theatre and performance to investigate pleasure, sexuality, and human rights. Her critical and creative work appears in Routledge, Black Camera, Qualitative Inquiry, Boston University Press, International Review of Qualitative Research, Theatre Topics, Howlround and Research in Drama Education. Dr. Mackie has directed or intimacy directed productions at The Huntington, Fresh Ink Theatre, Jewel Box Theatre in NYC, Arts at the Armory (Somerville), The Rockwell, and the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival. She is a freelance Intimacy Director and Adjunct Faculty at NYU.