Charlene Adhiambo and Amy B. Tiong Named 2025 Recipients of The Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship

Graduate students Charlene Adhiambo and Amy B. Tiong have been named as the 2025 recipients for the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship. The Fellowship was created in honor of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, as part of the Lillys mission of celebrating, funding, and fighting for women 
by promoting gender and racial parity in the American theater.

In an effort to rectify documented disparities based on gender and identity, the fellowship is awarded, on the basis of both merit and need, to graduate students enrolled in select writing programs across the country. Each writer receives a $25,000 stipend for each year of matriculation and up to $75,000 for living expenses, not covered by subsidized tuition. This year’s recipients were selected by playwright, screenwriter, and educator Christina Anderson.

The fellowship was developed as part of the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative, under the leadership and vision of Julia Jordan and Lynn Nottage. Past recipients of the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship are Darrin Terpstra and Morgan Webber-Ottey (2024), and Amalia Oliva Rojas and Danielle Stagger (2023).

Charlene Adhiambo

is an MFA candidate in playwriting at Columbia University. She is a proud Kenyan-American dramatist raised in Atlanta and based in Harlem. She was a semi-finalist for The Hearth Theater's 2023 Virtual Retreat, receiving support for her eco-horror SEED, and her one-act, time-travel play Guardian was stage read at Saudade Theatre’s Re-Descobrimentos Festival in 2020. She previously worked as an artistic associate at Obie-award winning PlayCo. Adhiambo is immensely grateful for this award and her village--her family, friends, and faculty! BA: Columbia University.

Amy B. Tiong

is a Chinese-American director and writer. Inspired by her immigrant parents, she has devoted herself to a lifelong love of learning, becoming a Gates Millennium Scholar and NYU Tisch Dean’s Scholar. She is honored to be a 2025 Hansberry-Lilly Playwriting Fellow and is pursuing her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage at Northwestern University. Amy’s work explores themes of solidarity and generational healing through genre-bending storytelling. Her feature script, When You’re Ready To Go—a horror immigration story—ranked in the top 3% on Coverfly and was a finalist in WeScreenplay, Stowe Story Labs, and ScreenCraft competitions. She has written and directed short films in partnership with The Dolby Institute, Ghetto Film School, Bustle Media, PictureStart, Wavelength Productions, and The NAACP. Her films address inequality and the desire to persevere. Amy enjoys boxing, reading, baking, and serving her community. She also holds a Master’s in Human Nutrition. Learn more at amybtiong.com.