Abigail C. Onwunali – 2026 Cohort

Abigail C. Onwunali is a multi-hyphenate Nigerian-American storyteller working across playwriting, performance, and poetry. As a playwright, she has received developmental support as a New Harmony Project Fellow, Red Bull Theater Short New Play Festival winner, Fault Line Theatre Irons in the Fire Residency recipient, La MaMa Experiments in Playwriting Fellow, Page 73 Writers Group member, and New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Artistic Fellow. She is also a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Obie Award-winning Youngblood collective. Abigail has been a finalist for the Fire This Time Festival, WP Theater Playwrights Lab, Rattlestick Theater’s Terrence McNally New Work Incubator, and Van Lier Fellowship, and a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Playwriting Conference. An accomplished performer, Abigail most recently appeared on Broadway as Martha Pentecost in the 2026 production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, directed by Debbie Allen. Other Broadway credits include Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. She is a two-time Elliot Norton Award nominee and winner of Outstanding Lead Performance for Mfoniso Udofia’s The Grove at The Huntington Theatre. She holds an MFA in Acting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and was part of the inaugural cohort of Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Mentorship Program. Her poetry has reached global audiences through performance, publication, and slam stages. Rooted in her Nigerian heritage, Abigail creates theater that centers her people, revives ancestral memory, and honors the emotional and spiritual depth of Black women.