Valerie Curtis-Newton

A writer, director and educator, Valerie is committed to finding new ways to represent the African American experience. As a producer, Valerie has forged unique institutional collaborations, commissioned forward-looking artists, and developed a “by any means necessary” plan for getting the work of black artists out into the world. As a director, Valerie has worked at venues as large as the Guthrie Theatre and as small church fellowship halls. And she has worked in various genres and styles from realism to ensemble-generated work. As a generative artist, her current interest is in African American artists in immersive work – an arena through which their stories are rarely told. Valerie is the Artistic Director for The Hansberry Project, a professional African American theatre lab and has worked with theatre’s across the country including: Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, New York Theatre Workshop, Southern Repertory Theatre, among others. She also serves as the Head of Performance at the University of Washington’s School of Drama. Her awards include: the 2014: Stranger Genius Awards in Performance and the Crosscut Courage Award for Culture.