Draft:Kara Lee Corthron

Kara Lee Corthron is a playwright, author, television writer, and producer based in Los Angeles.

Biography
Kara Lee Corthron was born in Cumberland, Maryland. and graduated from University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 1999, where she trained to be an actor. She graduated from Juilliard’s playwriting program in 2006 under the direction of Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman. She is the sister of playwright and author Kia Corthron. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Playwriting
Corthron's drama What Are You Worth? considers 800 years of slavery and the meaning of human value through three versions of a woman named Lucretia. In conceiving of the play, Corthron was inspired by her visit to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. The play was featured at the 2019 Orlando Shakespeare Festival workshop.

Her play Listen for the Light is set in 1844 in Nauvoo, Illinois, and centers on an educated former slave who has become a follower of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. The play premiered at the Know Theatre of Cincinatti in 2017.

Corthron wrote Welcome to Fear City, which was performed at Contemporary American Theatre Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University and Kansas City Repertory Theatre in 2017.

Her comedic play Time and a Half was developed and produced at Playwrights Horizons Theater School/NYU, Tisch in 2017.

Etched in Skin on a Sunlit Night centers the family of on an African-American exile in Reykjavik, Iceland, and was produced at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia in 2012.

Corthron's dark comedy Holly Down in Heaven, about a pregnant teenager living in a fantasy world of talking dolls, was produced at the Forum Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 2012

Her play AliceGraceAnon imagines a party attended by real and fictional characters, including Alice in Wonderland, Grace Slick, and the anonymous author of the 1971 novel Go Ask Alice. It was produced in New York City at the Irondale Center in 2016 and at New Georges in 2012.

Corthron's work has also been produced and performed at the Julliard School, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, African Continuum Theatre in Washington, DC, and at the DePaul Theatre School in Chicago.

Television Writing
Corthron was a writer for the television series The Flight Attendant (2020) on HBO Max. She also wrote for seasons two and three of You on Netflix, and for season three of Servant on Apple TV. She was a staff writer for the NBC drama, Kings, from 2008-2009.

Novels
Corthron has authored two young adult novels, The Truth of Right Now, published by Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse in 2017 , and Daughters of Jubilation from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 2021

Plays
Welcome to Fear City AliceGraceAnon Holly Down in Heaven Listen for the Light Etched in Skin on a Sunlit Night What Are you Worth? Time and a Half

Novels
Daughters of Jubilation (2021) ISBN: 9781481459518 The Truth of Right Now (2018) ISBN: 9781481459488

Awards and Honors
Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theater Award, William Inge Theatre Festival (2019) Boomerang Fund for Artists Grant (2012-2014) Naked Angels/New School Issues Project Resident Playwright (2014-2015) National Endowment for the Arts grants (2) Parents’ Choice Gold Award for The Truth of Right Now Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from Vineyard Theatre (2010) Princess Grace Award (2008) Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights (2006) Theodore Ward Prize for African-American Playwrights (2007) New Professional Theatre Writer’s Award (2006) Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize (three-time recipient) Semi-finalist, Sundance Theatre Lab

Fellowships
Guest Artist, William Inge Center for the Arts (2019) Cultural Diaspora Residency at The Camargo Foundation (France) (2018) Travis Bogard Artist in Residence Fellowship (2014-2015) Women’s Project Time Warner Fellowship MacDowell fellow (four-time recipient) Skriðuklaustur residency (Iceland) Boliasco residency (Italy) Hawthornden residency (Scotland) Djerassi Artists Residency Millay Colony Ledig House International Writers Residency at Art Omi