Chisa Hutchinson

Hutchinson was a Lark Fellow as well as a Dramatist Guild Fellow. She has been a Humanitas Fellow and the Tow Foundation Fellow at Second Stage.^[1]

Hutchinson has been a cast member of the Neo-Futurists in New York, a staff writer for the Blue Man Group, and a member of New Dramatists. She was among the first wave of commissions for Audible's Emerging Playwright program, and her Proof of Love was the first full production from the program.^[2]

Hutchinson was a writer on the 2024 Starz television series Three Women.^[3] Currently, Hutchinson teaches creative writing at the University of Delaware.^[4]

Chisa Hutchinson was born in Queens, New York in 1980. At the age of four she was unofficially adopted by a family in Newark, New Jersey. At the age of 14 Hutchinson relocated to the Short Hills section of Millburn, New Jersey to attend Kent Place School.^[5] It is here that she was exposed to theatre for the first time. While attending high school, her drama teacher took her to attend a debate between August Wilson and Robert Brustein which inspired her to write African American centric theatre.^[6]

Hutchinson attended Vassar College where she received an A.B. in Dramatic Arts. She would later go to earn her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts.^[4]

At Vassar College, Hutchinson was the only Black drama major. Because her education was not exploring theatre by Black writers, Hutchinson felt compelled to create her own work.^[5]

Hutchinson's work centers around responding to social issues, although she states that, "the best way to write a play about a social issue is to not make it about a social issue." Her plays tell stories of people that are rarely seen on stage, such as transgender stories or stories of people of color.^[6]

In interview she stated^[7]

I’m not a politician. I’m not a lawyer, an economist. I don’t know how to fix big stuff. I feel like someone handed me a shoelace and said, “Okay, build a rocket ship.” Words, that’s what I got, words. It’s what I have. But if change doesn’t happen it won’t be for my lack of trying, even if all I have to offer is words. I’m going to try every which way to wield those words to see what they can produce, what ripples they can make.

• Amerikin (59E59)
• Surely Goodness and Mercy (New Jersey Performing Arts Center)
• She Likes Girls (Lark Play Development Center, Working Man's Clothes)
• Proof of Love (Minetta Lane Theater)^[8]
• Mama's Gonna Buy You (Inge Center for the Arts)
• This is not the Play (Mad Dog Theatre Company, Cleveland Public Theater)
• Sex on Sunday (Lark Play Development Center, the BE Company)
• Tunde's Trumpet (Summer Stage, BOOM Arts)
• The Subject (Atlantic Theatre Company, Playwrights' Foundation, Victory Gardens Theater, Partial Comfort, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
• Somebody's Daughter (Cherry Lane Theatre, Second Stage)
• Alondra Was Here (the Wild Project)
• The Wedding Gift (Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Forward Flux)
• Dead & Breathing (Lark Play Development Center, National Black Theater)^[9]

• GLAAD Award (2010)
• Lilly Award (2010)
• New York Innovative Theatre Award (2012)
• Paul Green Award (2013)
• Helen Merrill Award (2013)
• Lanford Wilson Award (2015)
• Kilroys List - Somebody's Daughter (2017)^[10]

After the opening of her play She Likes Girls in 2008 Hutchinson's sexuality was put into the spotlight because the play centers around a young lesbian woman. Hutchinson however is bisexual.^[5]

Hutchinson's play She Likes Girls centers around a young lesbian couple at an inter-city high school. This play and the topics it deals with would lead her to receive a GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Award. Not only did the play win this award but it received positive reviews throughout its run in New York City.^[11]

In 2022, Chisa Hutchinson was included in the book 50 Key Figures in Queer US Theatre, profiled in a chapter written by theatre scholar La Donna L. Forsgren.^[12]