Oni Faida Lampley
ONI FAIDA LAMPLEY (Playwright/Actress) Oni Faida Lampley's plays were produced in New York and regionally. Her first play, Mixed Babies, (published by Dramatists Play Service) won a Helen Hayes award for Outstanding New Play for its Washington Stage Guild production in Washington D.C. It was subsequently produced in New York City by Manhattan Class Company. Her second play, The Dark Kalamazoo, earned her a Helen Hayes nomination for the Woolly Mammoth production, was produced at the Freedom Repertory Theatre in Philadelphia and premiered in New York at the Drama Dept and was published in The Fire This Time, by TCG, along with plays by Pulitzer prize winners August Wilson and Suzan Lori Parks. Her play, Tough Titty, about a family surviving the rigors of marriage and chronic illness premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival under the direction of Charles Randolph Wright. The play was commissioned by South Coast Repertory and made Lampley a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and a recipient of a 2006 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award. It will open at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in January 2009 directed by Robert O'Hara. Her play Sons was commissioned through the New Dramatists/ Children's Theater Company Playground program. As a member of Juilliard's Playwrighting Program, Oni received the Lincoln Center LeComte du Nouy Award. Other grants and commissions include The Booomarang Fund for Artists Inc., the Smithsonian Institute, the William and Eva Fox Foundation grant, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and a NYSCA grant via Brooklyn Information and Culture (BRIC), which was a frequent supporter of her work. She was a member of New Dramatists, The Actors Center and a Playwright-In-Residence with Mud/Bone Theatre Company. In 2007 she participated in the three-week New Dramatists' Ted Tulchin/Max Weitzenhoffer playwriting residency at the National Theatre in London. As a "working New York actor" Oni appeared in several films including Stay, Moneytrain, Jungle to Jungle and John Sayles' Lonestar. On television she appeared in all the Law and Orders, Third Watch, The Sopranos, As the World Turns, NYPD Blue and Oz. She was seen on Broadway in The Ride Down Mount Morgan, Two Trains Running and Mule Bone. She was seen off-Broadway in Mud, River, Stone, Zooman and the Sign, The Destiny of Me and Boesman and Lena among others. Regionally she worked at Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Old Globe, Center Stage and The Acting Company. Bio as of October, 2011. American Theatre Wing programs, interviews and/or credits include: SDCF Masters of the Stage (audio) Politics in the Theatre - October, 1985 Directing Shakespeare: Working The Text - April, 2001 - Listen Now. Website: www.theonifund.com