Kamesha Khan is a professor in the Communications, Media Arts and Theatre (CMAT) Department at Chicago State University. She is also the Director of Chicago State University Theatre. Kamesha is an award-winning stage director, dramaturg, and playwright who holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota. Kamesha is a former Education Director for Penumbra Theatre Company and a former Resident Dramaturg for ETA Creative Arts Foundation (ETA). Khan is also the Book Review Editor for tBTR (The Black Theatre Review). She has trained, directed, assistant directed, and dramaturged at such reputable theatre companies as: Penumbra Theatre Company, La Mama ETC Umbria, the National Black Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, and The Playwrights’ Center. Recently, Khan dramaturged Natalie Y. Moore’s The Billboard, which won the 2022 Jeff Award for Short Run Production–New Work. Stand Up!, a musical whose book Khan co-authored, received the 2019 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Play (Musical or Revue). Stand Up! was also nominated for the 2019 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Writing of a Musical. In 2016, Kamesha was nominated for the African American Arts Alliance Award for Best Director for her work on ETA’s production of Nikkole Salter’s Repairing a Nation. She was also nominated for a 2010 Black Theatre Alliance Award and a 2010 Black Excellence Award for her work as a director on Gus Edwards' A Fool Such as I. She is the recipient of the 2007 Best Director Award from the African American Arts Alliance and the recipient of the 2007 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Direction of an Ensemble for her work on ETA’s production of Crystal V. Rhodes’ Stoops. Some of Khan’s other directing credits include: Jitney (Goodman/ETA/August Wilson Celebration), Blues for an Alabama Sky, Citizen Jane, Topdog/Underdog, For Colored Girls…, Fires in the Mirror, Dutchman, Arcadia, and The Vagina Monologues.

New Work Dramaturgy and African American Theatre

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