Tarell Alvin McCraney is an American playwright and actor. His works often focus on racial identity and sexuality.
McCraney was born on October 17, 1980 in Liberty City, Florida. During his teenage years, he attended the New World School of the Arts in Miami, and was awarded honorable mention by the National YoungArts Foundation in 1999. He received a BFA in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University and his MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, where he received the Cole Porter Playwriting Award. He is also an Honorary Graduate of Warwick University in Coventry, England.
In addition to playwriting, McCraney is also a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble in Chicago and Teo Castellanos/D Projects Theater Company in Miami. In 2008 he became RSC/Warwick International Playwright in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Since 2017, he has been chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.
Tarell Alvin McCraney's body of work includes Choir Boy, Head of Passes, American Trade, Wig Out!, Without Sin, Run Mourner Run, and his Brother/Sister Plays trilogy (The Brothers Size, In the Red and Brown Water, and Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet). His script, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film Moonlight. He has also been awarded a United States Artists Fellowship (2017), the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for American Playwright in Mid-Career (2017), MacArthur Fellowship (2013), the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize (2013), the Steinberg Playwright Award (2009), the New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award (The Brothers Size, 2009), the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright (2008), and a Whiting Award (2007).
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