| Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

Derek Lee McPhatter

Writer / Producer
Chicago,
United States

Derek Lee McPhatter is committed to new work that engages diverse communities, emphasizing narratives at the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality and technology.

Recent projects include Bring the Beat Back, a queer, black, sci-fi, music-theatre experience and Serious Adverse Effects, a drama at the intersection of medical ethics, blood memory and forgiveness, incubated at The National Black Theatre (Harlem, NYC). Derek is a 2020 Resident Playwright with Chicago Dramatists. His work has also been presented / supported by: The Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Drama League, and Hi-ARTS, among others.

Derek has developed several short-form projects for OTV | Open Television, including HIVE, a futurist anthology series co-created with Stephanie Jeter and Tim Maupin. Publications include Otherwise Oblivion, featured in the 2016 Afrofuturism volume of Obsidian - Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.

Derek is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College and a Master of Arts in Humanities from New York University. He is originally from Pickerington, Ohio and splits his time between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

Journal Articles:
Leonardo Gallery

Scientific Delirium Madness 6.0 Gallery

June 2020

Podcasts

Body:

 

EPISODE NOTES (click through for transcript and more)

Derek Lee McPhatter, a playwright who unfolds narratives at the crossroads of race, class, gender, sexuality and technology speaks about his work, informed by his subjective experience as a black gay man. Edith Doove reviews the exhibition Fiction-Science—Buvard et Pichet.