Mfoniso Udofia, a first-generation Nigerian-American storyteller and educator, attended Wellesley College and obtained her M.F.A. from the American Conservatory Theater [A.C.T.]. While at A.C.T., she co-pioneered The Nia Project, which provided artistic outlets for San Francisco youth. She’s the recipient of the 2021 Horton Foote Award, the 2017 Helen Merrill Playwright Award, the 2017-18 McKnight National Residency and Commission, and is a member of New Dramatists.
Productions of her plays Sojourners, Runboyrun, Her Portmanteau, and In Old Age have been seen at New York Theatre Workshop, American Conservatory Theater, Playwrights Realm, Magic Theater, National Black Theatre, Strand Theater, and Boston Court. Udofia’s currently commissioned by Hartford Stage, Playwrights Realm, A.C.T., and South Coast Repertory. Her plays have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, A.C.T, McCarter Theatre, OSF, New Dramatists, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Hedgebrook, Sundance, Space on Ryder Farm, and more.
Since 2018, she has been working in television. She has worked as a staff writer on 13 Reasons Why, an executive story-editor on Pachinko, a co-producer and consulting producer on Little America, a supervising producer on A League of Their Own, a co-executive producer on Lessons in Chemistry, and a co-executive producer on Let the Right One In.
At MacDowell, Udofia worked on preparing The Grove, the second play in her projected 9-play cycle, for production. It is scheduled to open at the Huntington Theatre in Boston, MA in February 2025. Over the next two years, all nine plays in the cycle will be produced across the Greater Boston region, culminating in the co-production of the final installation, Adia and Clora Snatch Joy, with Boston Lyric Opera and the Huntington Theatre, as part of the city’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
Portrait by Frances F. Denny
