Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Abbott-Pratt was raised in Philadelphia.^[3] She earned a bachelor's degree at Clark Atlanta University,^[4] and a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from the University of Iowa.^[5][6] While at Iowa she appeared in a 2004 hip-hop adaptation of the Greek tragedy Seven Against Thebes,^[7] and in a 2005 production of Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood, directed by Tisch Jones.^[8]

Abbott-Pratt has performed in numerous regional theater productions,^[9][10] as well as on television shows.^[5] In 2002, she was a teen actress in Kia Corthron's Breath, Boom in Atlanta.^[11] In 2009, she co-starred in Tracey Scott Wilson's The Good Negro in Hartford and New York.^[12] In 2013 she co-starred in a production of Lydia R. Diamond's Stick Fly in Philadelphia.^[13] In 2014 she appeared in Marcus Gardley's The House that Will Not Stand in New Haven.^[14] She has appeared in several plays by August Wilson, including Gem of the Ocean with Novella Nelson and Stephen Tyrone Williams in Hartford in 2011,^[15] and Seven Guitars in Louisville in 2015.^[16] Also in 2015, she co-starred with Keith Randolph Smith in Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby,^[17] and with Royce Johnson in Katori Hall's The Mountaintop.^[18] In 2019 she starred in Too Heavy for Your Pocket, a drama about the Freedom Riders by Jireh Breon Holder, at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey.^[19]

Abbott-Pratt is an adjunct instructor in drama at New York University.^[20]

Abbott-Pratt was named "Best Emerging Actress" in 2003, by the Atlanta Constitution.^[21] In 2020, AudioFile included Abbott-Pratt's narration of Jordan Ifueko's Raybearer on their list of the best young adult audiobooks of the year,^[22] and in 2021, they included her narration of Ifueko's Redemptor on their list of the best young adult audiobooks of the year.^[23]

In 2022, AudioFile and Literary Hub named Abbott-Pratt's narration of Nightcrawling among the best fiction audiobooks of the year.^[24][25]