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Jacqueline E. Lawton

Playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for Access, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the American Theatre.

Jacqueline E. Lawton is a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for access, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the American Theatre. She received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin (Hook ’em Horns!), where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She participated in the Kennedy Center’s Playwrights’ Intensive (2002) and World Interplay (2003). Her plays include: Among These Wild Things, Anna K; Blackbirds; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful; The Devil’s Sweet Water; Edges of Time, Freedom Hill; The Hampton Years; The Inferior Sex, Intelligence; Love Brothers Serenade; Mad Breed; Noms de Guerre; and So Goes We.Ms. Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She is a 2012 TCG Young Leaders of Color award recipient and an alum of National New Play Network (NNPN) Playwright Alum, Arena Stage's Playwrights' Arena, and Center Stage’s Playwrights Collective. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a production dramaturg for PlayMakers Repertory Company, and the Dramatists Guild's Regional Representative for North Carolina.

Decolonizing Texts, Words, and Communication
Podcast

Decolonizing Texts, Words, and Communication

30 May 2018

In this podcast, DeLesslin “Roo” George-Warren, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen, and mia susan amir discuss how we can decolonize the primacy of the written word and text in theatre.

To Fear or Not to Fear
Essay

To Fear or Not to Fear

Community and New Play Producing

14 October 2016

In this piece, Triple Play project leads Tory Bailey and Brad Erickson respond to selections of a conversation between playwrights Laura Jacqmin and Jacqueline Lawton.

An Inside Look at Theater J
Essay

An Inside Look at Theater J

Interview with Shirley Serotsky

27 July 2015

Jacqueline Lawton interviews Acting Artistic Director of Theater J, Shirley Serotsky.

Writing Towards the Specific
Essay

Writing Towards the Specific

3 February 2014

As an African American woman playwright from a poor, working class, racist, country town in East Texas, I learned early in life that I am part of a community of people whose voices have been silenced, whose image has been exaggerated and misrepresented, and whose legacy has been erased and exploited. White playwrights, male and female, need to understand that they are writing within a legacy of the people responsible for having done those things to people of color. Neither legacy is fair. They come with unshakable, palpable, and visible burdens.

Yellowface in the American Theatre
Series

Yellowface in the American Theatre

In response to the protest and aftermath of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ now canceled production of The Mikado, this series addresses the racist performance and casting practices of Yellowface in the American Theatre.