Rebecca (She/Her) deeply values the intersections between artistic practice, narrative, culture, communications strategy/infrastructure and social change. She holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting (Multiplatform Writing) from Columbia University, an M.A. in English Literature, and a B.A. in Liberal Arts/Business Administration. She also studied publishing at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Rebecca is the founder of NICHLOSON THEATRE COMPANY — a Black, Queer-led theatre, performance & public imagination project based in Minneapolis. In addition, she has 10+ years of experience in strategic communications, the nonprofit sector, arts & culture, and academia.
During her time in the Sesame Street Writers’ Room fellowship program in New York City (created by Sesame Workshop), she wrote a pilot titled Sasha K. Jenkins, Kid Scientist. The un-produced script, “Decoding Hamad’s Dream,” was for an animated children’s television series focused on STEM methodologies and problem-solving.
Photo Credit: Carina Lofgren. Walker Art Center Citizenship Series (2019)
Rebecca is currently director of communications with the Center for Cultural Power, where she utilizes communications strategy and infrastructure building to amplify the efforts of cultural strategists working at intersections of artistic practice and social justice.
Rebecca has served as director of communications for the African American Leadership Forum (AALF), where she developed and implemented the organization’s communications strategy in addition to a communications plan development process and individual campaigns for initiatives, its leadership academy, as well as a collective impact program that fosters positive change in Minnesota’s African American community.
In addition, she’s served as director of digital storytelling for Art 4 New York (A4NY) and has worked as communications associate in the civic tech sector; developing communications plans for initiatives centered on technology for public good and providing communications support for premier New York-based civic tech efforts.
Rebecca is the recipient of a Liberace Award, the Howard Stein Fellowship, the Matthews Fellowship, an America-in-Play Fellowship, and received a 2020 Honorable Mention for her spoken word poetry from the McKnight Foundation. Her performance poem, Conjuring Transcendence: Zones, Borders, & Spiritual Visibility (2019) was presented at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and published in the Star Tribune (2020). In 2020 she wrote the libretto and vocal arrangement for Dear America, Beat Your Heart Defiantly, Naked & Open with Love, as part of the Minnesota Opera’s MNiatures program cohort.
Photo Credit: Carina Lofgren. Walker Art Center Citizenship Series (2019)
Her fiction, poetry, and performance works include Black Aurora, Blood as Sea Water, Children of the First Hummingbird, Intelligence, and Zar-Baby, among others. Rebecca is the recipient of a Cedar Cultural Center Commission for Multicolored Musings: Jewels of Love, Loss, & Triumph (a three-part collection of genre-defying songs she wrote, arranged, and performed).
Mara (Pt. 1) includes songs that tell the story of her full-length play with music, Mara Queen of the World; about an African American slave living on a plantation in 1830s Alabama, led into the forest by a mysterious light and given a magic quilt to defeat a dark force. The Infinite Power of a Human Piano (Pt. 2) is a poem that envisions the sound of our humanity. The piece includes an ode to Okonkwo, protagonist of Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, and vocal excerpts from songs reflective of Black America. Lastly, Romance Elegy (Pt. 3) is a celebration of complex romantic and self-love.
She has also written and edited content for Black Enterprise, a premier business and wealth-building magazine with readership of over 2 million, conducting interviews with nonprofit leaders and entertainment professionals such as Alan Jenkins, co-founder and executive director of The Opportunity Agenda (a communications, research, and policy organization). Rebecca has also interviewed playwright/screenwriter Dominique Morisseau (former story editor for Showtime’s Shameless), as well as Emmy-nominated actor/comedian Anthony Anderson (Black-ish) and series creator Kenya Barris.
During her time at Black Enterprise, she provided support for the company’s associated media outlets, such as Our World with Black Enterprise, a network television show featuring interviews with celebrities, newsmakers and thought leaders from around the country, and edited content for the 2015 Black Enterprise Tech ConneXt Summit in Silicon Valley.
As a book reviewer for IndieReader.com, she authored over twenty book reviews of fiction and non-fiction and contributed to “Everybody Pays For It,” published in The Huffington Post.
Her playwriting, creative, and performance work has been showcased at numerous venues in New York City and Minneapolis, including the Walker Art Center, The Cedar Cultural Center, The Playwright’s Center of Minneapolis (where she was a Many Voices Fellow for two residences), Harlem Classical Theatre (playwrights playground), The Fire This Time Festival, and Signature Theatre Company (as part of Columbia University School of the Arts “New Plays Now”), among others.
Her play Hello, I’m Eve was the 2013 winner of the Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award. In addition, Rebecca has taught playwriting at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
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