Talkback after the staged reading of Little Wars, August 26, 2019 at Keegan Theatre in Washington, D.C., directed by Josh Sticklin. Pictured (from left to right) Bianca Lipford and Linda Bard, actors, with playwright Graziella Jackson.
playwright’s bio
Graziella Jackson is a Brazilian-American playwright based in Washington, D.C.
A native Washingtonian, her plays have been produced or read by The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Md., and Keegan Theatre, Theater J, Capital Fringe Festival, Source Festival, Rorschach Theatre, Word Dance Theatre, and The Playwright's Forum in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, she had works produced for the One Minute Play Festival (1MPF) at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md. Her plays focus on intimate exploration of human relationships and social justice issues ranging from racial and gender equity to gun violence to systems of structural oppression.
Graziella has performed on-stage roles as Church Lady (understudy) in the Studio Theatre production of Stephen Adly Guirgis' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Between Riverside and Crazy; Octobra Defoliant and others (understudy) in the 2015 Studio Theatre production of Beth Henley's world premiere play, Laugh; and several performances in the 2014 and 2015 One Minute Play Festivals (1MPF) at Round House Theatre. She also performed Esmeralda in the staged reading of A New Heart at the 2014 Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival in Washington, D.C. She is an enrolled equity membership candidate through the Actors' Equity Association and trained at The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory (now Studio Acting Conservatory) and Playwright's Forum in Washington, D.C.
Graziella's work has been enriched by her academic and professional experiences. She has degrees in communication, journalism, and cultural studies from George Mason University (B.A.) and Georgetown University (M.A.) where she studied the intersection of technology and civic life. She is owner and CEO of the social impact-focused company, Echo&Co, a certified B Corporation that designs and builds technologies to improve lives, strengthen communities, and protect our natural world.
Graziella serves on the board of the Center for Digital Resilience, an international NGO that connects organizations and digital security experts to build tight-knit, secure civil societies. She chairs the board of United for Iran, a nonprofit organization that uses digital technology to advance civil liberties in Iran, whose work has been featured at the Oslo Freedom Forum and in WIRED, BuzzFeed, and Fast Company. She also is board vice chair of the Washington Improv Theater (WIT), D.C.'s destination for long-form improv, which for 17 years has brought the creative power of improv to the Greater Washington community.
When she's escaping from all of the above, you'll likely find Graziella spending time with her six siblings, singing, scuba diving, or visiting a National Park. She's on a quest to hike all 61 of the major parks with her husband, Karl (16 down, 45 to go).
Graziella was raised by farmer-activists, served (briefly) as a U.S. Marine, and is a proud citizen of both the United States and Brazil.