Kernel of Sanity

Kermit Frazier has been a writer — especially playwright and television writer — as well as a teacher of writing, literature, and theater for more than 40 years. His latest play, MODERN MINSTRELSY, was a finalist (60 plays out of 1,450 submissions) for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Another new play, FIREPOWER, premiered at the Detroit Repertory Theater in 2017. Plays produced in New York include KERNEL OF SANITY, SHADOWS AND ECHOES, OUTSIDE THE RADIO, DINAH WASHINGTON IS DEAD, and CLASS REUNION. Those produced around country include LEGACIES, SACRED PLACES, INTERSTICES, AN AMERICAN JOURNEY (commissioned by the Milwaukee Repertory Theater), DREAM KING (commissioned by Baltimore Center Stage), and SMOLDERING FIRES (commissioned by First Stage Children's Theater). Also, LITTLE ROCK, a rock'n'roll musical inspired by events surrounding the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957, which was commissioned by the Seattle Children's Theatre and performed in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, and Little Rock. He has also been commissioned to write living history plays for the Baltimore City Life Museum and the Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. As a television writer, his series include the popular children's mystery series Ghostwriter (which he helped to create and was a head writer), Gullah Gullah Island (co-producer and executive story editor), Married People, True Colors, All My Children, The Misadventures of Maya and Miguel, The Magic School Bus, and The Wonder Pets. His articles, reviews, and short stories have appeared such magazines and journals as Green Mountains Review, The Chicago Review, American Theatre, Black World, Essence, and The New York Times Book Review. "Drive," the first chapter of his memoir, Piecing the Puzzle: Coming of Age in Anacostia, was published in Callaloo. Another chapter, “Snow,” was a runner-up in a 2018 national essay contest and was recently published in The Missouri Review. His play SMOLDERING FIRES is published by Dramatic Publishing. Four other plays have been published by Broadway Play Publishing: AN AMERICAN JOURNEY, LEGACIES, KERNEL OF SANITY, and FIREPOWER. He has taught writing and literature at Syracuse, Chicago State, and Morgan State Universities, Baruch and Williams Colleges, and the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, where he also served as acting president. He has also taught playwriting and acting in Maryland public and private schools (through a program he helped develop at Center Stage in Baltimore) and in New York City area public schools through the Lincoln Center Institute. He has been a writer-in-residence at Williams College and at the Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. A recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting, Mr. Frazier has also twice had a play workshopped at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. He has had artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, Yaddo, Millay, Norton Island, and the Liguria Study Center for the Arts & Humanities in Bogliasco, Italy. A member of the Writers Guild of America, the Dramatist Guild, SAG-AFTRA, Actors Equity Association, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Mr. Frazier received his B.A. and M.A. in English from Syracuse University and his M.F.A. in acting from the New York University School of the Arts Theater Program. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Adelphi University, where he taught for thirteen years in the MFA program in creative writing.