“Living, to me, looks a lot like walking in the path I am destined to walk on and not playing it safe. Trying the areas once more that I thought I failed previously. Living means not being fearful of reprioritizing or reorganizing. Living is not being afraid to succeed.”
BIO
Amina McIntyre is a playwright from Atlanta, GA, who has had productions and readings of her plays with Working Title Playwrights at OnStage Atlanta, TipMyCup Productions at the Roy Arias Theater in New York, Wabash College, Colby College, Lenoir-Rhyne University, Spalding University, Indiana Theater Association ITWorks 2008, West Side Community CME Church, Sabrina McKenzie Ministries’ EPIC Women’s Conference, Lenoir-Rhyne University and the Hickory Museum of Art. Amina was the 2011 Visiting Playwright in Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne University and a finalist for the New York Theater Workshop’s Emerging Artist of Color Fellowship.
Amina received a BA in Anthropology at Colby College, a MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington, a MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University and a MTS from Emory University. She is a member of Working Title Playwrights, an Atlanta-based play development company, and Managing Director of Karibu Performing Arts, LLC/Songs of Karibu.
Most recently, Amina’s presented her play All’s Fair in Jewels and Dresses at the Fort Wayne Fringe Festival and she was an invited playwright for the Atlanta One Minute Play Festival. Amina is a recipient of a 2013-14 City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs Individual Grant, a Playwright Apprentice in the Horizon Theatre 2014-2015 Apprenticeship Company and the 2014-2015 Atlanta Region Young Ambassador for the Dramatist’s Guild.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I write as an urban, southern Black woman, specifically a native Atlantan, writing about southern Black life and its diaspora. As a womanist artist minister, healing, family, life, learning and love are constant themes in my work. Writing to heal is writing an expanded narrative of lives to eradicate stereotypes. Writing to heal addresses the complexity of race, gender, religion and socioeconomics that aren’t linear. For example, there isn’t the story about the poor African American girl who gets invited to the debutant ball, or the preacher woman who also practices conjure (and this is seen as natural). These narratives allow people to understand how a me exists and how I walk in my own shoes.
My plays generally examine seeking and a longing, leading to a greater self-awareness for my characters. I write for the senses what my characters see, taste, feel, know, understand. My inspiration is love (in all forms), traveling to important places in the African diaspora, and experiences like relocation, trauma or disruptions that cause us to refine our lives. I write the Southern girl who goes north and willingly comes back to the south because it is home. More than anything, I write about the search of self and how that search can also heal communities.
I write through the lens of ritual: patterns, systems, dedication, and faith. My work curiously investigates what it means to have order and what happens when order falls apart. I incorporate found language—words I hear on the street—cadences in voices and rhythms of everyday people. I write the girl who loses but keeps playing the game anyway. I infuse music, dance, art and other forms as that is the way of life. Come journey with; perhaps you will find the boldness to heal yourself, too.