lisa b. thompson

Lisa B. Thompson’s satirical comedies, poignant dramas and engaging scholarship challenges stereotypes about Black life in the US, particularly the experiences of the middle class. The award-winning artist, scholar and teacher is the author of four books: Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (2009), Single Black Female (2012), Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (2020), and The Mamalogues (2021). Thompson’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the US, and internationally and has been recognized with an Austin Critics Circle David Mark Cohen New Play Award, a Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work, a LA Weekly Theatre Award for Best Comedy nomination, and an Irma P. Hall Black Theatre Best Play Award. Her articles and reviews examining performances of race, gender, sexuality in theatre, film and popular culture have appeared in Theatre Journal, Journal of American Drama, Theatre Survey, NPR, Criterion Collection, Clutch, Huffington Post and The Washington Post. Her art and scholarship have received support from a number of institutions including the American Council of Learned Societies, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Michele R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Millay Arts, National Performance Network, and the W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center. The California native is currently the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, and the College of Liberal Arts’ Advisor to the Dean for Faculty Mentoring and Support at the University of Texas at Austin. Thompson also co-hosts and co-produces, Black Austin Matters, a podcast and radio segment on KUT: Austin’s NPR station that explores Black life, culture, and politics in Central Texas. She was recently appointed a Presidential Visiting Scholar at The New School for the 2022-2023 academic year.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
FB: https: @drlisabthompson
TW: @drlisabthompson
IG: @drlisabthompson

MORE ABOUT ME:
After over 20 years, I keep doing theater because of the ability to “do theater” simply by writing words and inviting others to perform them. It’s beautiful that theater making can happen in your living room, in your backyard, or around your dining room table. I’m fortunate that all of those readings in my living room have gone on to become fully staged plays in theaters across the world. That has brought me great joy because that means people who look like me get to see their stories on stage. It has also been deeply gratifying that artists that look like me also get to be the ones to tell those stories. I’ve begun to realize that being a playwright has incredible power. I get to collaborate with other artists to tell stories that have been hidden in plain sight but deserving of a spotlight. I keep doing theatre because I have artistic homes that support my vision. Those creative partners provide a space for me to tell complex stories about Black people that rarely appear on stage, screen, or on the pages of novels. Theater is a gift to my community and to my soul. I can’t live fully without it.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON 
I'm working on THE BLACK FEMINIST GUIDE TO THE HUMAN BODY, a performance piece about life and death for Black women. I'm also completing two dramas--GOLD and FLOOD-- which are part of my Great Migration trilogy that explores the experience of Black people's movement from the south to the west and the reverse migration back down south.

KEYWORDS
​Black, African American, woman, Queer, comedy, satire, professor, artist/scholar, historical, Afro-futurism, science fiction, political, thriller, southern, performance art, motherhood, sexuality, the Great Migration, Black Lives Matter.