Nambi E. Kelley

Nambi E. Kelley is an accomplished and award-winning playwright and actress. Playwriting honors include: New Victory LabWorks Playwright-in Residence. She was chosen by Toni Morrison to adapt her novel JAZZ. Her adaptation of Richard Wright’s NATIVE SON which had its world premiere at Court Theatre has been seen across the country and premiered off-Broadway in 2019 at The Duke on 42nd Street (The Acting Company; AUDELCO Award for “Best Play”). She was a former playwright-in-residence at the National Black Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, and The Dramatists Guild Fellows Program. She is the recipient of the 2020 NNPN annual commission, the Prince Prize 2019, and a Dramatists Guild Foundation Writers Alliance Grant 2018-19. Her other plays include: Xtigone (African-American Shakespeare Co, San Francisco, Spring 2012) and adapting and performing in The Book of Living and Dying, Singapore Arts Festival, summer 2012. Other honors include: Norman Mailer Writing Colony Fellow 2012, La MaMa Playwrights Symposium Playwright-In-Residence in Spoleto, Italy under the tutelage of Lisa Kron and Pulitzer prize winner Lynn Nottage, The Friends Fellowship (Ragdale Foundation), the 3 Arts Fellowship (twice nominated), TCG Candidate for Playwriting: Goodman Theatre, the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference nomination, and was honored at the Black Ensemble Theatre for her contributions in playwriting. Nambi's newly formed production company, First Woman Inc, is currently producing a digital and national tour of Nambi's young audiences' play, JABARI DREAMS OF FREEDOM, directed by Daniel Carlton. Nambi served as a writer on Showtime’s The Chi, a new show to air called Our Kind of People (Fox), and will serve as story editor on an Apple Plus show, TBA. She is also in development with several other film and TV projects.

Also an actress, Nambi has worked on stage and television in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and internationally, playing opposite such artists as Phylicia Rashad, Alfre Woodard, Blair Underwood, and Patrick Swayze.