Tanya Barfield

Tanya Barfield
Nationality	American
Occupation	Playwright

Tanya Barfield is an African-American playwright whose works have been presented both nationally and internationally.

Barfield was raised in Portland, Oregon and attended Metropolitan Learning Center. Before becoming a playwright, Barfield was a solo performer, appearing in her one-woman show Without Skin or Breathlessness.

She graduated from New York University and then attended the Juilliard School Playwrights program, receiving an Artist Diploma. She taught playwriting at Primary Stages School of Theater and Barnard College, New York University and she served as the literary manager of the Juilliard Drama Division from 2009-2014.

Her plays include: "Bright Half Life", The Call, 121° West, Blue Door,Dent, The Houdini Act, Medallion, Of Girl & Wolf and Wanting North, Pecan Tan and The Quick. She authored a book for a children's musical entitled Civil War: The First Black Regiment.

Her play Blue Door had its world premiere at the South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California in May 2006. It was then produced at the Off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons in September 2006 to October 2006, directed by Leigh Silverman. The CurtainUp reviewer noted: "Barfield’s play is filled with words that spin into near poetic riffs and define the past and the present philosophical and cultural attitudes of African-Americans in a unique and refreshing way....The title refers to a family memory and a tradition stemming from the days in the slave quarters when the door was painted blue to "keep the bad spirits out and the soul family in." It also was produced at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 2007, Berkeley Repertory and Harare International Festival of the Arts, Zimbabwe (HIFA). Blue Door was developed at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Utah, in 2005.

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