Dr. Nina Angela Mercer, Co-founder and Creative Executive Director
Dr. Nina Angela Mercer is a cultural worker and multidisciplinary artist living in Washington, D.C. Her plays include GUTTA BEAUTIFUL(The Warehouse Theatre, The Woolly Mammoth for DC’s Fringe, Abrons Arts Center, Little Carib Theatre); ITAGUA MEJI: A Road & A Prayer (Brecht Forum, Alternate Roots, Rutgers University Newark and New Brunswick, The Nuyorican Poets Café); GYPSY & THE BULLY DOOR(The Warehouse Theatre, the former Dumbo Sky); ELIJAHEEN BECOMES WIND (Anacostia Arts Center); CHARISMA AT THE CROSSROADS (Dorothy Young Arts Center); SPARROW(The Langston Hughes House); and A COMPULSION FOR BREATHING (The Schomburg Center and Target Margin Theater). Nina also joined Urban Bush Women as a collaborating writer and performer for the development of HAINT BLU which premiered for the Junebug Productions season in New Orleans at the André Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice with subsequent performances at the Hampton House in Miami, Florida with Live Arts Miami; MassMOCA in The Berkshires with Jacob’s Pillow and Williams College; St. Mary’s Church in Harlem, NY; and at locations in Oak Bluffs and Aquinnah withThe Yard in Martha’s Vineyard.
Nina’s writing is published in The Killens Review of Arts & Letters; Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance; A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine Online; Break Beat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Press); Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century (Duke University Press); Performance Research Journal (Taylor and Francis); Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People (Bloomsbury Press); and So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket Press).
Nina has performed with Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative for 2-3-4, 2-3-4; Angela’s Pulse for Paloma McGregor’s Building A Better Fishtrap/From the River’s Mouth; and for her own video poem created in collaboration with director Toshi Sakai, “Invocation for Josè Antonio Aponte,” which toured nationally and internationally with the “Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom” visual art exhibition.
Nina was the recipient of the CUNY-Schomburg Dissertation Fellowship. She is also a former Schomburg Scholar in Residence. She was the recipient of the Institute for Research of the African Diaspora in the Americas Dissertation Fellowship; the Toni Cade Bambara Summer Fellowship; the Center for Humanities Auto-Ethnography and Theater Fellowship; and the Dean K. Harrison Research Fellowship which supported research in Salvador da Bahia.
Nina has taught across disciplines at American University, Howard University, Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn College, Drew University, and for the Beyond Identity Program at City College. She is also co-founder and executive director of Ocean Ana Rising, Inc. (OAR) which is generously funded with grants from the NEA and The Black Seed.
Nina holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). She also holds a Master of Philosophy from The Graduate Center at CUNY, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing - Fiction from American University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University.
Nina is currently the inaugural post-doctoral Community Engagement Fellow at The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, and Culture at Georgetown University’s Racial Justice Institute.
Nina is a mother to two adult daughters who keep her mindful with an ear for new music and language.