Lisa B. Thompson
Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor of African & African Diaspora Studies, Fellow of the Ransom Chair, College of Liberal Arts' Advisor to the Dean for Faculty Mentoring & Support, University of Texas, Austin
Graduation Year
2000
Dissertation Title
Sex Talk: Black Middle Class Women Represent Sexuality
Lisa B. Thompson is an award-winning playwright and Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor of African & African Diaspora Studies, Fellow of the Ransom Chair, College of Liberal Arts' Advisor to the Dean for Faculty Mentoring & Support at the University of Texas at Austin. Her plays include Underground (Vortex Repertory Company, 2017 David Mark Cohen New Play Award from the Austin Critics Table), Single Black Female (New Professional Theatre, 2005 LA Weekly Theatre Award for Best Comedy nominee), Mother’s Day (FronteraFest Short Fringe, Hyde Park Theatre, Finalist), Watch (Out of Ink Ten-Minute Play Festival, Hyde Park Theatre), I Don’t Want to Be (Black Women: State of the Union—Taking Flight. Skylight Theatre), Dreadtime Stories: One Sista’s Hair (Inner City Cultural Center Talent Fest, Finalist), and Mother Nature (Washington Women in Theatre Festival). She is also the author of the books Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (University of Illinois Press, 2009), and Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (Northwestern University Press, 2020). She has held fellowships and residencies from institutions such as Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Stanford University’s Michele R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, UCLA’s Center for African American Studies, the University of Texas at Austin’s Humanities Institute, the University of California’s Office of the President, the Five Colleges, Hedgebrook, and The Millay Colony for the Arts.