Michael D. Dinwiddie (NYU Gallatin BA, Individualized Study ’80, NYU Tisch School of the Arts MFA ’83) is a dramatist and composer whose works have been produced in New York, regional, and educational theater. He has been playwright-in-residence at Michigan State University, St. Louis University, Florida A&M University, and taught screenwriting courses at SUNY Stony Brook, California State University at San Bernardino, and Universidad de Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, among others. An inaugural Fellow at Touchstone Pictures in the Walt Disney Writers Program, Michael worked as a staff writer on ABC-Lorimar TV’s hit series Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper. His honors include the Torchbearer’s Award (AUDELCO), the Frederica L. Teer Spirit Award as “a visionary and catalyst for institution building” from the National Black Theatre, honorary lifetime membership in the Black Theatre Network, and a National Endowment from the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting. He has served on the boards of the New Federal Theatre, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and the Duke Ellington Center for the Arts. Michael currently sits on the August Wilson Society and the NewFest LGBTQ+ Film and Media boards of directors. IN 2005 Michael received the NYU Distinguished Teaching Medal. His course offerings include Migration and American Culture; Dramatizing History I and II; Poets in Protest: Footsteps to Hip-Hop; James Reese Europe and American Music; Sissle, Blake and the Minstrel Tradition; Guerrilla Screenwriting; Motown Matrix: Race, Gender and Class Identity in “The Sound of Young America;” and study-abroad courses In and Of the City (NYU Buenos Aires), African Playwrights (NYU Ghana), Cultural Memory and Resistance (NYU Abu Dhabi). In 2018 he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center, and in 2022 the Black Liberated Arts Center, Inc., established the Michael D. Dinwiddie Playwright Award. He editor of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) publication Holy Ground: The National Black Theatre Festival Anthology.
