Toni Ann Johnson

Toni Ann Johnson is an American screenwriter, playwright, and novelist.

Toni Ann Johnson grew up in Monroe, New York and the Greenwich Village area of New York City. During high school she was a student at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She also attended City College of New York where she studied playwriting with Arthur Kopit. Johnson received a certificate in Cinema from Los Angeles City College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.

In June 1994, Johnson was selected as a participant for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab to adapt her stage play Gramercy Park Is Closed to the Public.

Johnson’s play Gramercy Park Is Closed to the Public was produced in the summer of 1994 by The Fountainhead Theatre Company in Los Angeles at The Hudson Theatre.

It was also presented as a staged reading as part of The Ensemble Studio Theatre Company’s “Octoberfest” in October 1994.

The play centers on the life of an upper middle class woman of mixed race and her romantic relationship with a white cop in her New York City neighborhood. The story explores complexities of race and class.

Gramercy Park Is Closed to the Public was produced by The New York Stage and Film Company in 1999 as a mainstage production and as part of its summer Powerhouse Theatre at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. It starred Nicole Ari Parker, David Warshofky and Eddie Cahill.

Johnson wrote the screenplay for the ABC television movie, Ruby Bridges. The film is based on the life of Ruby Nell Bridges, who in 1960, integrated the New Orleans public school system when she was six years old. Ruby Bridges premiered on ABC in January 1998.

In 2000, Johnson wrote the film The Courage to Love for Lifetime Television. The film is loosely based on the life of Henriette Delille, a free woman of color in mid-19th century New Orleans, who founded one of the first orders of nuns of African descent, The Sisters of the Holy Family.

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