Writing is my first love and theater is a close second. I’ve spent more weekends than I can count sharing stories in the dark with strangers. My vision is for the stories that come through me to invoke empathy, ignite curiosity, encourage critical thinking, and open the hearts of people around the world.
My stage plays and screen plays focus on the brilliance and resilience exhibited by Black people, for the benefit of all. My elders mopped floors for free and marched across them for freedom. I am challenging people who experience my work to question the stories they tell in their families and social groups as well as the stories they have been told about America. Imagining a vibrant future for Black people and other people of color is central to my work, because our best days are before us. Read my full artist statement.
I am part of the inaugural cohort of the New Georgia Woman Project: Black Women Speak, sponsored by Horizon Theatre Company and the National New Play Network. The program aims to develop new plays by nine Black women playwrights in the South. Public readings will be held in 2023.
The Wash had a reading as a part of a partnership between Hush Harbor Lab and Essential Theatre, Aug. 18. Learn more.
Younger had a reading at Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre in Atlanta, Feb. 18-20, 2022. Listen to my interview on NPR station WABE about the show.
Drama. 4W, 3M. In this imagined prequel to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, we journey with the Younger family matriarch, Lena, from Jackson, Mississippi to Chicago during the Great Migration. When she reunites with Walter, Sr., she finds that life in the North is not as they thought it would be. Will they be able to hold steadfast to their dreams and each other, or will the harsh realities of a new place get the best of them?
Mystery/Dark Comedy. 4W 1NB. In the midst of a global pandemic, a group of nurses find themselves entangled in a murder mystery and embezzlement scheme at the hospital where they work. In a world where Black women’s value is measured by their labor and chastity, can these women create new lives for themselves on the other side of this scandal? Or, will they be swallowed by a system that’s looking for someone to blame?
THE RECONSTRUCTION TRILOGY
The Reconstruction Trilogy consists of three plays set in post-Civil War Georgia. The plays explore the three areas that freed Black people nurtured in order to establish community after Emancipation: the family, sovereignty and economic mobility.
Drama. 5W, 7M. Reverend Campbell McNeal is in the fight of his life, running for a Senate seat in Georgia’s first state legislature since before the Civil War. President Grant has sent an ambitious group of men from the North to help with his election, but a mysterious young woman may be the opponent he never saw coming. Loosely based on the real lives of Tunis Campbell and Henry McNeal Turner, this new drama shows the real cost of the vote.
Comedy. 2M, 2W. What does it mean to love someone without bondage and obligation? After leaving their plantation, Flex and CeCe settle in a community of free Black people in South Georgia. With the world at their fingertips, they must decide whether they still want each other on this side of freedom.
I’m the only Kelundra I know, so if you’ve accidentally stumbled upon this page, it’s fate (and I have no idea what word you were trying to type in your search engine).