Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green

Background

Professor of Theatre & Africana Studies, Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green is a cultural historian, dramaturg, and director with twenty-years of higher education experience. Her research in Black Theatre has been presented to audiences in Uganda, Kenya, Trinidad & Tobago, and Belgium and she is the author of nineteen publications to date. She is published in Theater: Yale’s Journal of Criticism, Plays & Reportage, the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, the Journal of American Folklore, Continuum, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society Journal Peer Review Section, the August Wilson Journal, August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays (McFarland), Voyages in Post-Colonial African and African Diasporic Theatre (Cambridge Scholars), August Wilson in Context (Cambridge UP), African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs (Greenwood), and reprinted in Ashé: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expression (Routledge). She is the inaugural editor-in-chief of the Black Theatre Review (formerly Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance), the only peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to theatrical scholarship of the African Diaspora. tBTR has published over 40 scholarly and creative materials since the inaugural issue was published in July 2022.  

For William & Mary, Omiyẹmi has developed courses such as Black Acting Theory and Performance, African American Theatre History I & II, Theatre in a Post-Racial Age, Reimagining Communities, and single-author courses on August Wilson and Katori Hall. Between 2010 and 2020 she increased African American/Black Theater production at W&M by 60%. In anticipation of the centenary of the Department of Theatre & Performance, Omiyẹmi gave a comprehensive history of the development and operationalization of African American Theatre & Black Theatre pedagogy and production at William & Mary in the 22nd Martha & Carl Tack Faculty Lecture. Her direction and production dramaturgy have been seen at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois Wesleyan, Florida A&M, the Afrikana Independent Film Festival (Richmond, VA) and eta Creative Arts Foundation (Chicago, IL). For Cadence she serves as the Project Director for Sitelines BLM. For Cadence Cinema, Film & TV she directed her first feature length film, The Taylows. 

Omiyẹmi’s work has been recognized by the Black Theatre Alliance Awards, and with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, CultureWorks, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. William & Mary has recognized her work with several university honors and fellowships including University Professor for Teaching Excellence (2024-2027), an Arts & Sciences Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence, a term professorship as the Sharpe Professor of Civic Renewal and Entrepreneurship, and two William & Mary NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Faculty Support. As a W. Taylor Reveley, III Interdisciplinary Faculty Fellow, she collaborated with her long-time colleague, Dr. Amy Quark, on developing a community-university partnership, The Local Black Histories Project. 

Omiyẹmi directed the Program in Africana Studies from 2016-2022. In 2023 she became a Provost Faculty Fellow where she designed, implemented and oversees the Art & Science Exchange (ASE). Leveraging her work as a storyteller she developed Transitions in Leadership as VP for Professional Development for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). She was the 13th President of the Black Theatre Network, and she is the current President of the Black Theatre Association (ATHE). 

Omiyẹmi is a graduate of Hampton City Public Schools, William & Mary (B.A. in Psychology, 2000), and Virginia Commonwealth University (M.F.A. in Theatre Education, 2003). Before returning to William & Mary, Omiyẹmi was an associate professor of Communications, Media Arts, and Theatre at Chicago State University, and an Artist-in-Residence with the Black Cultural Center at Purdue University.