Zola Dee – 2023 Cohort

Zola Dee is a playwright, screenwriter, and performer whose works are deeply invested in exploring Black Americana, African diasporic religions, and imagining freer worlds for the Black collective body. Her most notable work GUNSHOT MEDLEY: Part 1 was Ovation Award recommended and published in Routledge’s Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. Her other plays include SMILE, GODDAMNIT, SMILE, Rain, River, Ocean, and Father, Father. Her work has been seen and/or developed with Antaeus Theater Company, CalArts Center for New Performance, Collaborative Artists Bloc, East West Players, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Hi-Arts, The Playwrights’ Center, Rogue Machine Theater, and Skylight Theater. While most of her artistic career has been based in Los Angeles, she is currently living in Minneapolis where she is a 2022-2023 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center. Other accomplishments include: member of Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow 2021-2022, CTG Writer’s Workshop 2019-2020 , 2017-2018 Core Apprentice at The Playwright’s Center and the 2018 Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights Diversity Fellow. Zola is a graduate from California Institute of the Arts with a BFA in Acting and a minor in Creative Writing. She is currently a freelance writer for Meow Wolf and loves busting a move to some old school R&B and funk music. She is currently managed by Management 360 in Los Angeles.