2016: Gloria Bond Clunie ’71, Playwright

Academic Dean Martha Griswold remarked, “We were so fortunate to have Gloria as this year's Writer in Residence. It is clear that her schedule, much more extensive than that of previous Writers in Residence, demonstrates her love of Chatham Hall and its students!”

 

In addition to her engaging and moving keynote address, Ms. Clunie visited classes, led creative writing workshops, and worked with the spring theater class in a staged reading of her play BLU!

 

Ms. Clunie is a founding member of the Playwriting Ensemble at Chicago’s Regional Tony Award winning Victory Gardens Theater where her plays North Star, Living Green, and Shoes premiered. She is also the founding Artistic Director of Evanston’s Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre where she directed scores of productions.

Her other plays include, Sweet Water Taste, SMOKE, Sing, Malindy, Sing!, BLU, Buck Naked, DRIP, Patricia McKissack’s Mirandy and Brother Wind, Bankruptcy, Merry Kwanzaa, Mercy
Rising, and QUARK. Her works have been published in the anthologies Seven Black Plays, Reimagining A Raisin In the Sun, and The Bully Plays. They have been work-shopped and
produced in a variety of theaters across America including Victory Gardens Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, ETA, Alliance Theatre, Triad Stage, Her Story Theatre, MPAACT, and Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre.

For thirty years, she has been an outstanding creative drama specialist in the acclaimed Evanston District #65 Drama Department, where she served as the Chute Middle School Fine Arts Chair, directed over 100 productions, and developed district drama standards and curriculum.

 

Ms. Clunie has been recognized for her work in theatre and education by the NAACP, AKA, and DST Sororities, American Alliance for Theatre and Education, and the Vision Keepers. Awards include a Chicago Jeff, a Children’s Theater Foundation of America Orlin Corey Medallion, a Scott McPherson, a Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Theodore Ward African-American Playwriting Prizes, New York’s New Professional Theater Award, Chicago Black Theatre Alliance Awards, NEA and Illinois Arts Council Fellowships, and the Evanston Mayor’s Award for the Arts.

Last year, Ms. Clunie was an Artist-In-Residence at Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock New York and at 360 Xochi Quetzal Arts Residency, Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico where she completed BLU- a two act drama exploring bullying. In March, BLU was read at The Growing Stage Children’s Theater of New Jersey 2015 New Play Festival and was the featured play in the AATE Playwrights In Our Schools Program at Utah Valley University. In July, she participated in the 2015 Women Playwrights International Conference in Cape Town, South Africa where excerpts from her play Shoes were presented. Also in July, SMOKE was a part of Dayton Playhouse’s 2015 FutureFest. In August, Buck Naked was performed in Detroit’s 2015 BoxFest, and she looks forward to SMOKE being presented again this September in New Works at Playhouse On The Square in Memphis. Currently, as part of Northwestern University’s American Music Theatre Project, this Northwestern graduate (B.S. Theater, MFA-Directing) is adapting her acclaimed drama North Star into a musical.