Velina Hasu Houston has written over thirty plays (fourteen
commissions) in a career that began Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre
Club and the Negro Ensemble Company, and in Los Angeles at the Odyssey
Theatre Ensemble and East West Players.
Her plays have been produced internationally including at the Old Globe
Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Smithsonian
Institution, Whole Theatre (Olympia Dukakis, producer), NHK (Japan, nationwide),
Pasadena Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, Barrington Stage, and others. She
has been awarded fellowships from Japan Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation,
James Zumberge Research Foundation, Sidney F. Brody Foundation, and the
Center for Feminist Research; as well as being honored by Sidney Poitier,
American Film Institute, Pinter Review Prize for Drama (Silver Medal),
Made In America Visionary Award, Visions and Voices Arts & Humanities
Project, and others.
Film history includes work with Columbia Pictures, Sidney Poitier, PBS,
and several indie producers. She is Professor of Theatre, Resident Playwright,
Associate Dean of Faculty, and Creator/Director of the Master of Fine
Arts in Dramatic Writing, University of Southern California, School of
Theatre.
Her work is published internationally with Smith and Kraus, Dramatists
Play Service, Temple University Press, and others. Currently, she is writing
commissions with LA Opera and Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project.
She serves on the Department of State’s Japan-US Friendship Commission,
US-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange, and Japan-US
Bridging Foundation.
Archives at The Velina Hasu Houston Collection, Huntington Library,
San Marino, California. www.velinahasuhouston.com
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