Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green

Background

Hired as the African American Theatre Historian in 2010, Omiyẹmi shares her expertise in Black Theater and African American Theatre with students on the William & Mary Theatre Mainstage and in 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. 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), eta Creative Arts Foundation, and Cadence, where she originated and serves as the originator and Project Director for Sitelines BLM. This year, Omiyẹmi looks forward to directing Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time for William & Mary Theatre.

Omiyẹmi is the inaugural editor-in-chief of the Black Theatre Review (formerly Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance), the only journal in field dedicated to theatrical scholarship of the African Diaspora. As the VP for Professional Development for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, she conceived and developed Transitions in Leadership, a resource of oral testimonies from leaders in the arts on theories and pathways to leadership from the classroom to cabinet in higher education. This year, as a W&M Provost Faculty Fellow, she will spearhead the launch of the Art & Science Exchange (ASE), a public facing series of interdisciplinary exhibitions, performances, workshops, presentations, and hands-on activities by faculty, staff, guests, and students that illuminate the interplay between art and science, the art in science, and conversely, the science in art.

Omiyẹmi’s research is published in the Black Theatre Review, Theater, 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), Ashé: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expression (Routledge), Voyages in Post-Colonial African and African Diasporic Theatre (Cambridge Scholars), and African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs (Greenwood). She has forthcoming work in Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Radical Imaginings for Just Communities (Routledge), and August Wilson in Context (Cambridge UP). 

Omiyẹmi’s research 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 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. Since the inception of the Theatre & Dance department in 1926 and the hiring of its first Black faculty member sixty years later, she is the first Black woman and alumna to achieve tenure and promotion to full professor in Theatre.