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Mark Clayton Southers

Mark Clayton Southers is an award-winning playwright, photographer, scenic designer, theatrical producer and stage director. He and his family reside in Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District. He is the founder and producing artistic director of the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company where he has produced well over 125 full-length and one-act plays, including August Wilson’s complete ten-play Pittsburgh Century Cycle. Mr. Southers is a published poet and playwright as well. His play Ma Noah was the recipient of the 2004 Theodore Ward prize at Columbia College, Chicago. His poem/play Angry Black Man Poetry had a successful run at Teatr Śląski in Katowice, Poland in 2009.

After Mark attended a master class in playwriting conducted by August Wilson at the Grahamstown Arts Festival in South Africa, he attended the Edward Albee Theatre Festival later that summer in Valdez, Alaska where he did seated readings with Mr. Wilson of all of Wilson’s plays. These encounters encouraged Mark to take up playwriting and devote more time to theater arts.

In 2003, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company was born, producing Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson, which received critical acclaim and high praise from the playwright himself. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company has continued to grow and thrive, moving to the Cultural District in 2005.

In 2011, PPTCO relocated within the Culture to 937 Liberty Avenue (3rd Floor), across the street from the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.

From 2010 to 2013, Mr. Southers served as the Artistic Director of Theatre Initiatives for the 486 seat August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

In 2013, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company became the first theatre company to present the entire Pittsburgh Century Cycle of August Wilson's ten plays in the order in which they debuted on Broadway.

In 2015, Southers has been selected as Artistic Director of Short North Stage Theatre's August Wilson Festival. Mark directed three of the shows for Short North Stage: a reading of “Gem of the Ocean” in January 2016 to kick off the Festival, a full production of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” in June and a full production of “Fences” to open 2016-17 season.

Southers was the first to produce and do scenic design all of August Wilson's ten plays in the order in which they debuted on Broadway. He has directed Wilson's work at American Stage Theatre in Jacksonville, FL and the Human Race Theatre in Dayton, OH.