Debra Ann Byrd is an award winning classically trained actress and producer who recently was named Writer-in-Residence at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Artist-in-Residence Fellow at the Folger Institute, a Community Scholar Arts Fellow at Columbia University, Artist-in-Residence at Skidmore College and Artist-in-Residence at Southwest Shakespeare, where she recently reprised the role Othello, winning her the 2019 Broadway World Phoenix Award for Best Lead Actress. She is the Founding Artistic Director of the Harlem Shakespeare Festival and an emerging playwright, who recently completed her new solo show BECOMING OTHELLO: A Black Girl’s Journey. Debra Ann received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Marymount Manhattan College and completed advanced studies at The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab, Shakespeare & Company and The Broadway League’s Commercial Theatre Institute. Her classical roles for the stage include Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Volumnia in Coriolanus, Cleopatra in Antony & Cleopatra, Othello in The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice, and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest; the latter, for which she received Best Lead Actress and Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role nominations from AUDELCO and the NY Innovative Theatre Awards. Byrd’s career as an actor, producer, arts manager and business leader has been recognized with more than 20 awards and citations, including the NAACP Shirley Farmer Woman of Excellence Award, the LPTW Lucille Lortel Award and the Josephine Abady Award for Excellence in “Producing works that foster diversity.”