a.k. payne (they&she) is a playwright, artist-theorist, and theatermaker with roots in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by way of the U.S. South & the Black Atlantic.
upcoming
upcoming
love i awethu further
a world premiere
directed by Tamilla Woodard
Wooly Mammoth Theater Company
Washington, DC.
Developmental Readings
(reach out on my Contact Page for More Info!) For Thunder & Ray: The Football Play
September 29, 2026 @ 3 pm EST, NYC, NY
(Atlantic Theater Company)
(this smoky city)
Our Sunlite’s Grove
December 12, 2026; Pittsburgh, PA
(City Theater Company’s Momentum Festival)
“you will speak as you speak/ you will walk like you have a right to it./ you will have a right to it./ you will breathe easy…”
—SMITH
“so this is for us being pushed out and dying too young with brief extraordinary lives and images worthy of a hundred thousand poems.”
“if you combust, ain’t nothing left for me to lose, so you can’t combust, okay?”
—Sade
