LaDarrion Williams

Hailing from the small town of Helena, Alabama, LaDarrion Williams is a self-taught playwright, filmmaker, author, and screenwriter whose goal is to cultivate a new era of Black fantasy. As a playwright, his first play Katrina won first place at the Alabama State Thespian Conference. Black Creek Risin’ was a part of the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. His play, Coco Queens, was invited to participate in the 2019 Sundance Institute’s Playwriting Intensive. His plays also received semi-finalist recognition from the Eugene O’Neill National Playwriting Conference. He is a 2x finalist for the National Black Theatre I AM SOUL Playwriting Fellowship and American Blues 2023 Blue Ink Award. He is also an alum of the Echo Theatre Playwrights Lab, TSU’s Black and Latino Playwrights Festival, and the Boise Contemporary Theater BIPOC Playwrights Festival. His Jeff Award nominated play Boulevard of Bold Dreams (a story about Hattie McDaniel’s historic Oscar win) was a part of the New Works Festival at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica, California. It had a world premiere production at the TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago and an East Coast Premiere at Greater Boston Stage Company in March 2023. It will be part of the Orlando Shakes Theater Signature Series in Fall 2023 and will be produced at subsequent theatres nationwide in 2024-2025. In his filmmaking bag, LaDarrion has curated three short films on YouTube. And as a debut author, his Young Adult Blood at the Root was acquired in a competitive auction from Labyrinth Road, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and will debut in Summer of 2024.