what i’m up to.

happening now:

9/15: I’m making my 54 Below debut in the Seventh Annual Harvard-Yale Cantata.
9/26: I join the Non-Equity Resident Acting Company of Mercury Store.

august 2022:

8/4: I graduated from Atlantic Acting School‘s Evening Conservatory Program
8/19: I appeared on Broadway Podcast Network’s Critics Table Podcast to chat about Fat Ham

july 2022:

7/14: My piece, Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner, was published with Howlround Theatre Commons.

earlier this year:

My piece, Improving Black Women’s Sexual Health Means Rejecting Respectability Politics, was published with TheBody
I played Snout/Moth in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
My piece, The Exhausting, Endless Black Trauma-Art Feedback Loop, was published with Mental Hellth
My interview piece, Lifting up each other, Lifting up ourselves, was published with The Public Theater

what i’m about.

TL;DR: Ekemini Ekpo (she/her) is a theater artist, singer/songwriter, cultural critic, and writer. She is NYC-based, by way of Austin, TX and Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

Hey, y’all.

I’m a Nigerian-American performer/cultural critic/retired Twitter fiend.

First, here’s the perfunctory actor bio: NYC: Mercury Store Non-Equity Company, Harvard-Yale Cantata (Feinstein’s/54 Below), Hello Dolly! In Concert at the Stonewall Inn (Black Theatre Coalition and Creating in Color), 24 Hour Plays Nationals. Regional: The Tempest (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Elliot Norton Award Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Coriolanus (Praxis Stage). Education etc: Atlantic Acting School, IGNITE Mentorship, Harvard College

Beyond acting, I am a product of the “Tumblr Fandom Discourse” to “Chronically Online Twitter Pontificator” to “Published Critic and Essayist” pipeline. I am an alum of the BIPOC Critics Lab, created by Jose Solís with support from the Kennedy Center. I’ve written for Howlround Theatre Commons, The Public Theater, TheBody, and Mental Hellth, and I can be found gisting about plays on Broadway Podcast Network’s Critics’ Table podcast. Speaking of podcasts, I assistant produced Planet v. Profit, a podcast centering the stories of climate activists and activism.

I graduated, cum laude, from Harvard College with my Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. My social scientific work (i.e. the work that’s actually related to my degree) has focused on identity-based violence, white nationalism, and the U.S. carceral system.

Also…I promise I’m not as serious as I look.