TRACEY SCOTT WILSON

is an American playwright, television writer, television producer, and screenwriter. She graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in English and from Temple University with an MA in English Literature. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Wilson began writing fiction after graduating from Temple University. Finding herself unable to finish a novel, she decided to take a playwriting class. "I didn't see much theater as a kid, so I had no expectations....It just took me over." Wilson soon realized that she had found her métier and wrote a number of short plays. At the encouragement of her mentor, playwright Chiori Miyagawa, Wilson applied for and won a New York Theatre Workshop fellowship in 1998.

Awards and residencies include two Van Lier fellowships from the New York Theatre Workshop, a residency at the Sundance Institute Playwright's Retreat at Cross and the Sundance Institute Theater Lab, the 2001 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, the 2003 AT&T Onstage Award, a 2004 Whiting Award, the 2004 Kesselring Prize, the 2007 L. Arnold Weissmuller Award and the 2007 Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship. In 2009, she was the writer-in-residence at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. On February 29, 2014, the Joyce Foundation announced that Wilson was one of the recipients nts of its 2014 Joyce Awards. With her prize, Wilson worked intimately with a community inMinneapolis, Minnesota, and wrote Prep, which debuted at the Pillsbury House Theater during the theater's 2015 season.

Wilson's productions include Order My Steps for Cornerstone Theater Company's Black Faith/AIDS project in Los Angeles; Exhibit #9, which was produced in New York City by New Perspectives Theatre Company and Theatre Outrageous; Leader of the People, produced at New Georges; Buzzer at Pillsbury House Theater and the Public Theater in New York City; two 10-minute plays produced at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a 10-minute play produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and The Good Negro at the Public Theater in New York City.

Wilson's first major Manhattan production was in 2003 with The Story at the Public Theater. The Good Negro was produced at The Public and then at the Goodman Theater in 2010. Wilson's Buzzer was produced as part of the Goodman's 2013–14 season and was added to the Public Theater's 2014–15 season in October 2014. She has taught and guest lectured at Brown University, Yale University, Rutgers University and New York University.