Eisa Davis
Eisa Davis is an accomplished American playwright, actress, and musician, born in 1971 in Berkeley, California. She is the niece of notable political activist Angela Davis, which has significantly influenced her artistic expression. Growing up in a family deeply engaged in civil rights and social justice, Davis began performing at a young age and pursued formal training in music and drama. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and later obtained an MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School.
Davis's notable works include the acclaimed play "Bulrusher," which explores themes of race, identity, and community through the story of a clairvoyant biracial orphan. Her plays often highlight the intersection of African American culture and social issues, earning her critical recognition, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist nomination. In addition to her theater work, Davis has appeared in various television series and films, such as "The Wire" and Spike Lee's "Passing Strange." She has released original music albums and has received multiple awards, including the Alpert Award in the Arts and an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance. Eisa Davis continues to reside in New York City, where she actively engages in diverse artistic endeavors.
Subject Terms
Eisa Davis
Playwright
- Born: May 5, 1971
- Birthplace: Berkeley, California
Contribution: Eisa Davis is an American playwright, actor, and musician. Her play Bulrusher was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
Background
Angela Eisa Davis was born in Berkeley, California, in 1971. She was named after her aunt, the prominent American political activist Angela Davis, a two-time vice presidential nominee for the Communist Party of the United States of America.
Her mother, Fania, was a civil rights attorney who was also very active in the volatile social and political culture of the era. Davis’s mother worked extensively for both civil rights and women’s equality. Davis’s maternal grandmother was a retired dramatic arts teacher who instructed her in piano, dance, and singing. Beginning at age nine, Davis performed monologues and other performances depicting scenes from her aunt’s early life, once in front of hundreds of spectators at a Communist Party rally in the Bay Area.
In June 1981, at the age of ten, Davis enrolled at the Young Musicians Program at the University of California, Berkeley, where she began her first formal training in piano and music theory and composition.
Davis went on to study at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in social studies in 1992, submitting an undergraduate thesis concentrating on African American arts.
From 1994 to 1997, Davis attended the Actors Studio Drama School at the New School in New York City, where she earned a master’s of fine arts in acting and playwriting.
Career
Davis wrote and developed her first major play, Paper Armor, in 1999. A narrative about the friendship between the famed African American authors Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and its demise following their collaboration on the 1931 play Mule Bone. Paper Armor was developed at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company.
Her next play was Umkovu (2001), about a hip-hop record label and the commercialization of black culture. Six Minutes (2004), about a pair of black literary critics turned violent, came next, followed by Hip Hop Anansi (2006), about a West African tale adapted for hip-hop artists.
Davis’s 2006 play Bulrusher ushered her onto the national stage as a prominent new voice and burgeoning force in the dramatic arts. The play depicts the upbringing of a clairvoyant biracial orphan who comes of age in the small town of Boonville in the redwoods region of Northern California in the 1950s. The play makes extensive use of the real-life Boonville jargon known as Boontling; audience members at opening performances were given a glossary of some ninety Boontling terms to follow. The play’s haunting and anguished insight into the civil rights struggles of both African Americans and American Indians gained it national recognition and widespread praise from critics and artists alike. Bulrusher was a finalist in 2007 forPulitzer Prize in the drama category.
Davis’s next play, Warriors Don’t Cry (2007), was an adaptation of the 1994 memoir of the same name by Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine, the first African American students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957.
Davis garnered further critical attention with Angela’s Mixtape (2008), a musical memoir about her radical upbringing and the prominent influence of her well-known aunt in her early life. The work, in which Davis performed as herself, was named one of the best Off-Broadway plays of 2009 by the New Yorker magazine. Also in 2008, Davis’s work as an actor reached a new level. She debuted that February on Broadway with a leading role in the rock musical Passing Strange. That May, she and the rest of the Passing Strangeensemble won an Off-Broadway Theater Award, or Obie, for their prior performances of the show. She also appeared in Spike Lee’s 2009 film adaptation. She later worked as a writer from 2017 to 2019 on Lee's television series She's Gotta Have It, based on his 1986 film of the same title.
She has followed Angela’s Mixtape with three more plays: The History of Light (2009), Ramp (2010), and Active Ingredients (2011), which she developed in collaboration with Brooklyn's Third Root Community Health Center and sing-songwriter Morley Kamen. Davis received the 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts in recognition of her expansive theatrical treatments of themes of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In 2013, she received an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance.
In addition to performing on stage, Davis has also made several notable appearances as a television actor in series such as The Wire (2002–8), Smash (2012), Hart of Dixie (2011–12), House of Cards (2015–16), Blindspot (2016), The Looming Tower miniseries (2018), and Rise (2018) . She has also released two albums of original music, including a 2007 full-length album of soul music, Something Else, on which she sings and plays piano, and the album Tinctures.
Impact
Eisa Davis has repeatedly drawn on her extraordinary upbringing as the daughter of a practicing attorney and civil rights advocate and the niece of a prominent political figure. Her insight offers a deeply felt and unique perspective on the trials and triumphs of African American women. Her gifts as a writer, actor, and musician have provided Davis with a wonderfully diverse approach to a myriad of contemporary cultural issues.
Personal Life
Eisa Davis lives and works in New York City.
Principal Works
Bulrusher, 2006
Hip Hop Anansi, 2006
Angela’s Mixtape, 2008
The History of Light, 2009
Ramp, 2010
Active Ingredients, 2011
Bibliography
Davis, Angela. “The Lineage We Write Into.” Interview by Daniel Alexander Jones. Alpert Award in the Arts. Alpert Award in the Arts, 2013. Web. 22 July 2013.
Elist, Jasmine. “A Double Life as Actress, Playwright.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 14 Aug 2011. Web. 22 July 2013.
Isherwood, Charles. “A Struggle to Grow Up in an Activist’s Shadow.” New York Times. New York Times Co., 10 Apr. 2009. Web. 22 July 2013.
Laster, Lori Ann. “Eisa Davis: Voice with a Pedigree.” American Theatre Feb. 2008: 44–47. Print.
Lee, Felicia R. “A Broadway Mother of Many Identities.” New York Times. New York Times, 8 Mar. 2008. Web. 22 July 2013.