NEHASSAIU DEGANNES (short play commissioned writer). Born in Trinidad to Grenadian and Guyanese parents, and Dominican and Vincentian grandparents, with extended family hailing from or having now arrived in St Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Antigua, Tortola, the U.S., England and Canada, Nehassaiu deGannes (she/her/hers) is truly a daughter of the Caribbean Diaspora. A multi-hyphenate actor, poet, playwright, fluent in classical, contemporary, research-driven and newly devised experimental works, Nehassaiu has appeared as an actor Off B’way, regionally and internationally, originating roles in several world-premieres, including The High Ground by Nathan Alan Davis (Arena Stage), Incendiary by Dave Harris (Woolly Mammoth,) and Is God Is by Aleshea Harris (Soho Rep.) In her original plays and solo-shows, Nehassaiu deploys assemblage to awaken repositories of myth and memory, dredge resilience from traumatic dispersals and create radical envisionings of joyous belonging. Her plays have been produced by Digital Dionysus, Shakespeare & Co., Syracuse University Center for Folk Art, CUNY Staten Island, All Children’s Theatre, Rites and Reason Theatre, Providence Black Rep, and her one-act, The Frangipani Door, received Perishable Theatre’s Women’s Playwrighting Award. She has twice served as featured performer for The UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, toured nationally with Cynthia Oliver COCo Dance Theater’s evocative exploration of women and calypso, Rigidigidim De Bambe De, and received a 2020 Assembly Deceleration Lab Grant to seed development of EBB & lo’, an exhumation of the oft forgotten Caribbean creole background of world renown love poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Nehassaiu’s own book of poems, Music for Exile (Tupelo Press 2021,) was awarded the NEPC Sheila Margaret Motton Prize. Currently at The Shaw Festival in the Canadian premiere of Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand and a brand-new Sherlock Holmes mystery, Nehassaiu lives in Brooklyn on the unceded lands of the Munsee-Lenape. (nehassaiu.com / IG @nehassaiu)
