Anya Pearson is an award-winning playwright, poet, screenwriter, actress, and activist. A ‘21-22 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, she was a finalist for Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program (2023), for the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting at Brown University (2020), and the National Black Theatre’s Playwriting Residency (2019). Her plays include: THE MEASURE OF INNOCENCE (The Kilroys List, Drammy Award, Finalist: Oregon Book Award), MADE TO DANCE IN BURNING BUILDINGS (Showcase: Joe’s Pub, NYC; STT), THE KILLING FIELDS (2018 Orphic Commission; Seven Devils New Play Foundry; Great Plains Theatre Conference, NY Classical), WITHOUT A FORMAL DECLARATION OF WAR (PCS Commission, Seven Devils, JAW, Great Plains), BUTTERFLIES EAT DECAY (The Road Under Construction Cohort 4, Linestorm Playwrights Go Play Outside), THREE LOVE SONGS (Play at Home Initiative, PCS). She is the Artistic Director of We Are Urban Haiku, an online writing center and community that works to actively decolonize writing pedagogy and practice while increasing accessibility and centering the global majority. A spoonie. A survivor. A single mother. A body alive with multiple nexuses of marginalized identity and sediments of trauma, she is a fierce advocate for survivors of sexual and domestic violence, BIPOC folx, the chronically ill, those with rare diseases, and the disabled. She is currently writing a four-play cycle reimagining the Oresteia through an African-American lens, her memoir, a novel, two pilots, a short and a feature, and constantly plotting, planning, devising, creating, imagining, and revising visions of a better, more just world. www.anyapearson.com

For Cly, the news of her husband’s early release from prison threatens to unravel everything she’s worked for. Set in East Oakland during the 1980s crack epidemic, The Killing Fields re-imagines the story of Agamemnon through one mother’s epic struggle to rescue her daughter. The Clytemnestra Cycle is a reimagining of the epic Greek myth, The Oresteia, through an African-American lens. Spanning 50 years, 4 different presidential administrations, and several major historical events, the cycle follows a Black family through the years as they grapple with love, death, justice and the weight of generational trauma. Further, the cycle interrogates the FBI’s involvement in the suppression of Black liberation through COINTELPRO, the CIA’s involvement in flooding Black communities with crack/cocaine, the War on Drugs, the resulting rise of mass incarceration and systemic injustice, the legacy of slavery and anti-Black rhetoric that continues in the present day.

This grant would make a profound difference in my life as an artist by giving me the gift of space and time—something that has been especially scarce this past year. After my daughter endured a horrific bullying situation, I made the difficult decision to withdraw her from school and homeschool her myself. While I do not regret that choice, it demanded nearly all of my energy and time, leaving little space for my own artistic practice. Now that my daughter has found a safe and supportive new school, paying off the remainder of her tuition would mean more than financial relief; it would restore to me hours each day that I can dedicate fully to my craft. As a single mother living with chronic illness, I understand intimately that time is a precious and limited resource. Every moment I can reclaim for writing, creating, and imagining is invaluable—not only for my own growth but also for the stories I want to bring into the world. This grant would allow me to move forward on drafting the next play in the Clytemnestra Cycle without the constant pressure of juggling financial strain, caretaking, and survival. It would create the conditions for me to write with focus, rigor, and freedom. Most importantly, it would affirm that my work has value and deserves investment. Receiving a major grant, like this one, from such an incredibly prestigious institution like AGE would be life changing. With each opportunity gained, especially one as prestigious as a this, comes more exposure, more access, more opportunity, more ability to empower and uplift a wider range of people, more ability to effect large-scale change in the world. There is power in being recognized for your achievements and for the promise of what you are destined to become.