Jamal Williams

A novelist, short story writer, playwright and screenwriter, Jamal Williams has a Master of Creative Writing from The University of San Francisco State at San Francisco. He is a Charter Member and former Executive Director of The Buriel Clay San Francisco Black Writers Workshop, * and Playwright-in-Residence of The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Company (1989-1992). He is a winner of the San Francisco Bay Guardian 1st Playwriting Competition for Best Full-Length Play, 1991 (“Is You Is or Is You Ain’t”). His first novel, entitled Where Dark Things Hide, is an urban science fiction and horror novel. Jamal is a member of the Frank Silvera Writers Workshop and had a new play read in the Playwright Series of the 2001 and 2003 National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

With almost 20 of his plays in productions, Jamal’s work has been staged many times in different parts of the country: San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Winston Salem, North Carolina, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and New York City. His most recent and newly-scheduled productions include, “Return to Crosscreek” (R. Joyce Whitley Play Festival Karamu Theatre Company, April 2004), “Ding Dong Daddy” (Blacken Blues Theatre Festival 2004, Dallas, Texas), “Yesterday Came Too Soon: The Dorothy Dandridge Story” (Los Angeles Production, February/March 2004; and Berkeley Black Repertory Company, Berkeley, California, November 2003; and National Black Theatre Festival, Winston Salem, North Carolina, August 2003); The National Black Theatre, NYC., April 2005. “Cooking with Pearl”, a play about Pearl Bailey was produced in New York in 2011.

Additional stage productions are: “Eulogy for the Blackman” (Theater for the New City, New York, June 2002); “The Blue Mirror Revue” (via The Writer’s Clique at Harlem Theatre Company, New York, February 2002), “Yesterday Came Too Soon: The Dorothy Dandridge Story” (The 4305 Village Theatre, September 2001). This Los Angeles production was nominated for eight Hollywood/Beverly Hills NAACP Theater Awards of 2001. The production won for Best Actress. And “House on Fire” (Theater for The New City, New York, March, 2000) was highly acclaimed.

Jamal has won numerous awards, fellowships, and scholarships. He has about thirty plays, two novels, and two full-length and two short screenplays in his biographical body of work. There have been many staged readings of his plays.

Contact information: 219 Benedict Road, Montgomery, New York 12549
Cell; 845 551 5273 Email: Jammit50@