Lydia R. Diamond
American playwright (born 1969)
Lydia R. Diamond (born April 14, 1969, in Detroit, Michigan) is an American playwright and professor. Among her most popular plays are The Bluest Eye (2007), an adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel; Stick Fly (2008); Harriet Jacobs (2011); and Smart People (2016). Her plays have received national attention and acclaim, receiving the Lorraine Hansberry Award for Best Writing, an LA Weekly Theater Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the 2020 Horton Foote Playwriting Award from the Dramatists Guild of America.
She has taught playwriting at DePaul University, Loyola University, Columbia College Chicago, Boston University, and University of Illinois at Chicago. She is also a Huntington Playwright Fellow and a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists.
Early life
Lydia Diamond was born Lydia Gartin in Detroit, Michigan in April 1969. After her parents divorced when she was three, she was primarily raised by her mother. Diamond's upbringing was artistically inclined, her mother and grandparents were all musicians and educators. They moved frequently due to her mother's work, living in Amherst, Massachusetts; Carbondale, Illinois; and Waco, Texas, where she completed high school.
Her family encouraged her to pursue the violin, like her grandfather, but she discovered a love of theatre while in high school after joining the drama club.
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