Eisa Davis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Eisa Davis
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Davis in 2024
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| Born | May 5, 1971 |
| Education | Harvard University (AB) New School for Social Research (MFA) |
| Occupation | Playwright, actress, singer-songwriter |
| Relatives | Angela Davis (aunt) |
Eisa Davis, born on May 5, 1971, is a talented American artist. She is a playwright, an actress, and a singer-songwriter. You might know her as the co-creator of the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda. She also wrote plays like Bulrusher and Angela's Mixtape. Eisa Davis has won an Obie Award for her amazing acting on stage in New York. She lives in Brooklyn.
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Early Life and Education
Eisa Davis grew up in Berkeley, California. When she was a child, she loved to dance. She also learned to sing and play classical piano at a special program at UC Berkeley. Her aunt is Angela Davis, a well-known political activist. Eisa Davis wrote a play called Angela's Mixtape. This play tells the story of her childhood in California and how her family's political ideas influenced her.
After finishing Berkeley High School, Eisa Davis went to Harvard University. There, she earned her first college degree. Later, she got her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Actors Studio at the New School for Social Research. She studied both playwriting and acting. Her teachers even said she was so good at dancing that she could have joined the famous Alvin Ailey dance company!
Eisa Davis's Career
Eisa Davis started acting professionally when she was just 10 years old. She appeared on a local TV show. Throughout high school and college, she acted in plays, industrial films, and movies. After college, she moved to Los Angeles. There, she worked with Anna Deavere Smith on a play about the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
After graduate school, Davis continued acting in TV shows and films. She had roles in popular shows like The Wire and Soul Food. She became a lifetime member of the Actors Studio. She also became a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Eisa Davis used her experience as a hip-hop journalist to write essays. She also took part in the Hip-Hop Theater Festival. She helped bring together theater and hip-hop music. She also became a poetry fellow at Cave Canem, a respected group for Black poets.
In 2006, Eisa Davis's play Bulrusher was first shown. It was even nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, a very important award. In 2007, she won an Obie Award for her work in the musical Passing Strange. This show started at Berkeley Rep. Then it moved to Broadway, and Eisa Davis went with it. Later, the whole show was filmed by the famous director Spike Lee. In 2009, she wrote and starred in her autobiographical play, Angela's Mixtape. The New Yorker magazine even listed it as one of the best plays of that year.
Eisa Davis also played Addy Pickett in the TV series Hart of Dixie. She was a nurse and receptionist in a small Southern town. This show was about a New York City doctor who moved to a small town.
From 2012 to 2013, Eisa Davis was an artist-in-residence at Symphony Space. She also taught at Williams College. While she kept writing and acting in plays, she became even more well-known. She had roles in TV shows like House of Cards, Mare of Easttown, and Kindred. She also wrote for TV, including Spike Lee’s Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It and Justified: City Primeval.
Eisa Davis has released two music albums of her own, called Something Else and Tinctures. Some of her songs were even featured on the Showtime series Soul Food. She also narrated the audiobook for An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. In 2022, her bilingual play Mushroom was first shown. It's about mushroom pickers in Pennsylvania. This play received several Barrymore nominations. Her play Bulrusher was also produced again at Berkeley Rep in late 2023.
In 2024, Eisa Davis's play Bulrusher was turned into an opera. West Edge Opera in Berkeley, California, performed it. This brought her story to a new kind of performance.
Eisa Davis's Artistic Ideas
Eisa Davis believes in a Ghanaian idea called Sankofa. This word means "return and collect it" or "go back and get it." For her, this means looking into her own family history and past. She uses these stories and ideas in her plays. She also uses her art to answer questions that she thinks about a lot. She believes that "Theatre is one of the few public spaces we have for active contemplation." This means theater is a special place where we can think deeply. She explores ideas about being Black and about family through the beautiful language in her plays.
Awards and Recognition
Eisa Davis has won many awards for her amazing work. Here are some of them:
- 2006: Obie Award for Passing Strange (Won)
- 2007: Pulitzer Prize for Bulrusher (Nominated)
- 2009: Obie Award for Sustained Excellence (Won)
- 2011: Ruby Prize for Ramp (Won)
- 2012: Herb Alpert Theatre Award (Won)
- 2019: AUDELCO Award for The Secret Life Of Bees (Won)
- 2020: Creative Capital Award (Won)
- 2023: USA Artists Fellow (Won)
Images for kids
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Eisa Davis in 2024
