BWW Exclusive: Meet the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalists- Erika Dickerson-Despenza

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced 10 Finalists for 2021 for its prestigious playwriting award, the oldest and largest prize awarded to women+ playwrights. The Winner, to be announced on April 7, will be awarded a cash prize of $25,000 USD, and will receive a signed print by renowned artist Willem De Kooning, created especially for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Ahead of the announcement, BroadwayWorld is excited to spotlight each of this year's finalists. Below, learn more about Erika Dickerson-Despenza and read an excerpt form her play, cullud wattah.a??a??

What does it mean to you personally to be recognized by such a reputable and respected organization?

This is the third or fourth time in the past three years that a professional theatre has submitted my work for the Blackburn Prize. This is the first year that I've been a finalist. So firstly, I am honored that those champions of my work continued submitting my plays. Secondly, to be honored as a Black woman playwright who exclusively centers Black women and girls in my work affirms what I have always believed: that Black women and girls' stories that are not primarily focused on heterosexual romance can take up a full night of theater. Our stories can incite, disrupt, agitate, offer witness and visions of another world. I am honored to be recognized as a Black woman writer for a play written in the Black vernacular of the Black midwest in all of our glory and struggle.

What has happened since you were announced as a finalist?

Since the finalist announcement, UK theatres have taken a greater interest in my work. I look forward to that interest materializing into some delicious opportunities. I'd like to build transnational relationships with more Black women directors with radical left politics.

What's next? Do you have any new projects on the horizon, ideas that you'd love to put on paper, etc.?

The filmed San Francisco Playhouse & Lorraine Hansberry Theatre production of my play [hieroglyph] closes April 3rd. [hieroglyph] is the second play in my 10-play Katrina Cycle. The first play in that series, shadow/land, premieres as an audio play at The Public Theater on April 13th. In addition to my current Katrina Cycle commissions at Studio Theatre and Williamstown Theatre Festival, respectively, I'm developing projects in television and film and have my eye on penning an opera. I would also like to be commissioned to adapt both a Black classic play and Brecht.

Read an excerpt from Erika Dickerson-Despenza's play, cullud wattah:

Click here to learn more about The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.