Blueprints for Imagining Freedom
Award-winning playwright and theatermaker a.k. payne creates work rooted in Black pasts, presents and futures, exploring memory, migration, joy, freedom, community and the meaning of home.
A graduate of Yale College and Yale School of Drama, payne was named one of Variety’s Top Ten Storytellers to Watch and won the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Furlough’s Paradise. Their work has been produced Off-Broadway and at theaters including Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre and Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse.
For payne, plays are more than stories—they are “living, embodied blueprints” for imagining new worlds together.
That vision comes home to Pittsburgh with the world premiere of BURNBABYBURN: an american dream, running through September 13. Following four generations of Black women, the play looks to the past while asking what futures we might dare to imagine. More information and tickets here.
