Eisa Davis

© Jimmy Fontaine

EISA DAVIS is an award-winning performer, writer, musician and composer working on stage and screen. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher, and wrote and starred in the stage memoir Angela’s Mixtape, named a best of the year by the New Yorker. Angela’s Mixtape is now published with The History of Light (Barrymore nomination) in a volume from 53rd State Press / TCG. Of her thirteen full-length stage works, highlights include Ramp (Ruby Prize winner), The Essentialisn’t (Creative Capital Award), and Mushroom (Barrymore nomination). Notable collaborations include Cirque du Soleil’s first ice show, Crystal, AFROFEMONONOMY, and the songs for the musical adaptation of Walter Mosley’s Devil In A Blue Dress. Davis has released two albums of original music: Something Else, and Tinctures (with Daniel T. Denver), songs from which were featured on the Showtime series Soul Food.

Davis wrote for both seasons of Spike Lee’s Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, and produced and wrote for the FX series Justified: City Primeval. As a theatre actor, she has earned an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, an AUDELCO, three Lucille Lortel nominations, and a Drama League nomination. She is known for her screen roles on Mare of Easttown, Kindred, The Wire, House of Cards, Pose, Ahsoka, The Looming Tower, Hart of Dixie, and as a member of the original Broadway cast of the Tony-winning Passing Strange. She will soon be seen in the films Relay and Ex-Husbands, and on the Netflix series The Madness.

Other awards include the USA Artist Fellowship, the prestigious Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, a playwright residency at New Dramatists, and a multiyear fellowship with Black poetry organization Cave Canem. An advocate and creator of hip hop theatre since its inception, Davis is a Bay Area native and lives in Brooklyn, NY.