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Marian X

Why write? Because, as Zora would say, “there’s no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.” All my life I’ve been consumed by the aesthetics and politics of the written and spoken word. What particularly makes my heart sing is creating word-worlds that take me to provocative places and intimate spaces. It’s as though a force is created for activism and self-actualization that integrates the boundless realm of the imagination with the mundane realities of every day existence, thereby manifesting an inspirational fountainhead that energizes what’s best in us all.

Why write for theatre? Because it allows for every art form under the sun, and because I’m a closet exhibitionist with stories to tell. A play can talk in exclamation points or with ellipsis marks. It can sing and dance. It can edify you, blind you, relieve your suffocation, render you magnificently silent, or threaten your vital signs. I love sitting in the dark watching artist and audience participate in the communal exorcism of the politically personal that is theatre.

Although my primary mode for expression has been and is drama, I’m currently trying my hand at poetry, non-fiction and fiction. I like to call what I do Imagination as Religion.

PRODUCED WORK / VENUES

The Screened-in Porch- a drama of fantastic realism in which two women re-unite after 35 years to take breathing lessons.

  • Horizon Theater Company (Atlanta, GA)
  • Crossroads Theatre Company (New Brunswick, NJ)
  • St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre (St. Louis, MO)
  • Florida A & M University (Jacksonville, FL)

The Mayor’s Wife- with Philadelphia’s MOVE tragedy in the background, a woman examines the politics of love, experiences the transformative power of dance and finds her umuada.

  • Villanova University Sesquicentennial Festival (Villanova, PA)
  • Women of Color Productions (NYC)
  • Theater Center Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)

Wet Carpets- a dramedy with music about the mid-life crises of three women on the occasion of their shared daughter’s graduation from high school.

  • District One Museum (Cape Town, SA)
  • Crossroads Theatre Company (New Brunswick, NJ)
  • Theater Center Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)
  • St. Louis Black Repertory Company (St. Louis, MO)
  • Oregon Stage Company (Portland, OR)
  • The Paul Robeson Theater (Buffalo, NY)
  • Autumn Production’s Encore Theater (Baltimore, MD)
  • Oakland Ensemble/Upstart Stage Company (Berkeley, CA)

The Three Marys Bake Shoppe- three women, one white, one black, one mixed-race make their way without husbands in post-Revolutionary War Philadelphia. [commissioned by Historic Philadelphia, Inc.]

  • Town Criers Summer Theatre (Philadelphia, PA)

Warrior Stance or Sex, a Comedy- an allegorical tale about contemporary family life set in pre-history “on planet Earth in a place due south of the Caucasoid Ridge.”

  • Freedom Theatre (Philadelphia, PA)
  • Philadelphia Black Theatre Festival (Philadelphia, PA)
  • Penumbra Theater Company - workshop production (St. Paul, MN)

Are You With Me Now?- a public health film [commissioned by AIDS Films, Inc.]

Dream Variation- a drama in black and white about a man who escapes his roots to find success and returns home to rescue a child and recapture his humanity.

  • Kuumba Theatre Company (Chicago, ILL)
  • Theater Center Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)

Idella- a woman’s heart and soul are freed by love and poetry on a hot summer day.

  • Rosemont College New Play Festival (Villanova, PA)

AWARDS

  • TheIndependence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts
  • The Theatre Communications Group Playwriting Residency Fellowship
  • The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in the Arts
  • The Pew Charitable Trusts Fellowship in the Arts
  • The Playwrights’ Exchange Minneapolis/Philadelphia Residency (Pew)
  • The Kennedy Center/ACT Festival XXV Region II Playwriting Award
  • The New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award (NYC)

WORKS-IN-PROGRESS

  • When There Are No More Gods - a dramatic account of love anxiously sought, litigiously betrayed, tragically abandoned, mysteriously transformed, and majestically renewed
  • Loose Pages - a novel, told thru the eyes of a six-year-old African American girl, about the familial and societal forces that shape the woman she is to become.
  • Cultural Rootedness: From Philly to Cape Town - six weeks in South Africa as a guest artist.
  • France: 15 Days of Light - four weeks in Paris, Thynerais, and Normandy as a tourist.
  • Markings - poetic musings on the subject of heart-joys, soul-aches and just plain goofy stuff.

EDUCATION

  • Morgan State University (Baltimore, MD) B. A. English
  • Villanova University (Villanova, PA) M. A. Theater

AFFLIATIONS

Current:

  • Working Title Playwrights
  • CARE USA (writing consultant / instructor)
  • Horizon Theatre Company (reader/playwright)
  • Voices of Our Nations Writers' Workshop (artist-in-residence)
Former:
  • Philadelphia Dramatists Center (co-founder)
  • Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival (mentor)
  • University of Pennsylvania Theater Department (reader/mentor)
  • Philadelphia Black Theatre Festival (artist)
  • The National Black Theatre Festival (artist)
  • The Women's Circle at Crossroads Theatre Company (artist-in-residence)
  • The Frank Silvera Workshop (artist)
  • The Dramatists Guild, Inc. (member)

CONTACT

Marian X
1131 Villa Drive NE, Apt 5
Atlanta, GA 30306

404.872.7909 - home/work/fax
770.367.3395 - mobile
unicorn11244@juno.com