YVETTE HEYLIGER is a playwright, producing artist, educator, and activist. Author of What a Piece of Work is Man! Full-Length Plays for Leading Women, she has contributed to various anthologies including On Holy Ground: The National Black Theatre Festival Anthology, ARTemis Arts Wisdom Anthology, She Persisted: 30 Ten-Minute Plays by Women Over 40, She Persisted: Monologues from Plays by Women Over 40, Performing #MeToo: How Not to Look Away, Performer Stuff, The Monologue Project, Short Plays on Reproductive Freedom, Later Chapters: The Best Scenes and Monologues for Actors over Fifty, WE ARE THEATRE, 24 Gun Control Plays, The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2003 and The Best Stage Scenes 2003. Textbooks include The Children of the People: Writings by and about CUNY Students on Race and Social Justice and Performing #MeToo: How Not to Look Away. Other writings include various theatrical print articles, blogs, and scholarly journals for The Native Society: Personalizing Thought Leadership, The Dramatist, Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance, Black Masks: Spotlight on Black Art, and HowlRound. Yvette is a Finalist for the Advance Gender Equity in the Arts 2022 AGE Legacy Playwright Grant, a recipient of AUDELCO Recognition Award for Excellence in Black Theatre’s August Wilson Playwright Award and Dramatic Production of the Year. She received a Best Playwright nomination from NAACP’s Annual Theatre Awards. After many years in front of the footlights, Heyliger returned to the stage as a solo artist in her one-woman show, Bridge to Baraka, which she performed in the United Solo Theatre Festival and the National Black Theatre Festival among others. A partner in Twinbiz™ with twin sister Yvonne Farrow, she is the co-recipient of the first National Black Theatre Festival Emerging Producer Award. She has a BA and MA from New York University; an MFA in Creative Writing - Playwriting from Queens College; and a Master of Theatre Education from Hunter College. Memberships: Dramatist Guild, AEA, SDC, and AFTRA-SAG. Service: DG’s Equity Diversity Inclusion Access Committee, Honor Roll! Executive Committee (Emerita), League of Professional Theatre Women, and co-chair LPTW Rachel Crothers Leadership Award®. Community memberships: Harlem Arts Alliance and Theatre Resources Unlimited. Yvette was an Obama Fellow during President Obama’s re-election campaign and was a founding member and a longtime volunteer with (the now-defunct) Organizing for Action. As a citizen-artist, she has worked on many issues including gun violence prevention, equal opportunity and pay for women+ artists, and the MeToo movement. Yvette is a full-time faculty member teaching Acting and Script Analysis at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She lives in Harlem, USA.

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