LORI PAYNE - BIOGRAPHY
LORI PAYNE, Photo by Clifton Faust
Lori Payne's experience encompasses writing, directing and acting. She is an artist who works to learn. Her influences include Gil Scott-Heron, Zora Neale Hurston, Lillian Hellman and Dr. Henry Miller. Her purpose is to express as art the complex nature of humanity through the wit and eloquence of the common wo/man. Her written works include the stage plays Catherine Street, Bling!, Sach’Elays, and Last Call at the Miracle Grill, the one-act trilogy entitled Ulterior Side Dishes, and Black Peet on the Eve of Emancipation. New York productions of her plays include: Bling!, at the Producers’ Club as a semi-finalist at the Strawberry One-Act Festival, and at South Oxford Space, produced by The American Theatre of Harlem; Ulterior Side Dishes at the Nuyorican Poets Café; and Catherine Street as part of Manhattan Repertory Theatre's Summerfest. Ulterior Side Dishes was produced as a radio drama by the WBAI producer and journalist, Dred Scott-Keyes.
Click HERE to download Lori Payne's Artist Profile Packet.
Click HERE to download Lori Payne's Artist Profile Packet.
Production and Performance
At Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New York
Lori's directing credits include: Mother Tongue Monologues, produced by Black Women's Blueprint at Harlem’s historic National Black Theater; Stop the Bleeding by Joseph Krawczyk at the venerated American Theatre of Actors; Evening Gloves, by Helen Hill; Catherine Street, by Lori Payne; Family Matters and Soiled Wings by Michael A. Jones; and Black Peet On The Eve of Emancipation, her original work commissioned by the Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum. New York acting credits include the role of Mummie in Nigel Barto’s Christmas Weekend; Gabbi Foss, in Bling!, by Lori Payne; SWAP, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, for which she received positive mention in Time Out magazine for her role as Tabitha; Gussie Lee in Anthony Harper's Stolen Waters Are Sweet; Lorraine Oraline Donna Jean Johnson Ponce, an original character she created for La Reina's Barriolesque; and Gullah Elder Storyteller with the KowTeff African Dance Company at the Miller Theatre of Columbia University. In 2003, she participated in the University of New Orleans production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues performing My Angry Vagina.
Education and Editorial
Presenting award to Dr. Henry Miller, New York
After earning a B.A. in Drama and Communications from the University of New Orleans, Lori wrote for local and regional publications, choosing to document stories that focused on the arts, activism, and local history. Her articles have appeared in Where Y’at Magazine, Survival Digest Monthly, where she also worked as arts editor, and The Louisiana Weekly in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2004, Lori moved to New York and began studying playwriting under the late Anthony ‘Tee’ Saralegui, author of the book Writing One Play. She gained further editorial and marketing experience while working as an editorial assistant at The Village Voice. In 2009, Ms. Payne served as Media Coordinator for the Langston Hughes Cultural Enrichment Movement, a community organization that promotes the works of Langston Hughes. She served as a member and Board Secretary of Uptown Playwrights from 2008 through 2012, an organization led by Dr. Henry Miller, author of the book Theorizing Black Theatre: Art Versus Protest in Critical Writings, 1898-1965.
Lori is currently developing her newest stage play, entitled Thirst. As a returning resident of New Orleans, La, she is a long distance member of New York theatre collectives Polaris North and HP 21.
We support women! Click HERE to find resources for those who've experienced sexual abuse or trauma.
Lori is currently developing her newest stage play, entitled Thirst. As a returning resident of New Orleans, La, she is a long distance member of New York theatre collectives Polaris North and HP 21.
We support women! Click HERE to find resources for those who've experienced sexual abuse or trauma.
