Nkenna Akunna

Nkenna Akunna (she/they) is an Igbo playwright, performer and lecturer from London whose work primarily explores friendship, time, labour, and power. Her debut play cheeky little brown recently opened at Bristol Old Vic to critical acclaim. She is a member of the 2022/23 Soho Repertory Theater Writer Director Lab, where her play Woo Woo Child was presented in September, 2023/24 Ars Nova Play Group, and a recipient of an MTC Sloan commission. She is winner of the 2021 Papatango Playwriting Prize, and the Rosa Parks Playwriting award and Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting award from the Kennedy Center. She was a 2021 Playwriting Fellow at Sewanee Writers’ Conference, 2022/23 Dramatist Guild Fellow finalist, 2023 Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence, and a recent MacDowell Fellow. Her BA in Economics and African Diaspora Studies is from Dartmouth College and MFA in Playwriting from Brown University, where she was recipient of the Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship. Akunna is also Editor at Large at Skin Deep Media, a collective that makes space for Black creatives and creatives of colour through cultural production. nkennaakunna.com