YVETTE HEYLIGER, author of What a Piece of Work Is Man! Full-Length Plays for Leading Women, is the recipient of the AUDELCO Recognition Award for Excellence in Black Theatre’s August Wilson Playwright Award and a Best Playwright nomination from the NAACP’s Annual Theatre Awards. Recently her monologue, On the Brink of Middle Age, first published in Reproductive Freedom Festival Plays, was selected by Applause Books for Later Chapters: The Best Scenes and Monologues for Actors Over 50.

After many years in front of the footlights as a playwright, she returned to the stage as in her first one-woman show, Bridge to Baraka, which was also published by Indie Theatre Now. Selections from her play, Autobiography of A Homegirl, appear in Smith and Kraus’ The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2003 and The Best Stage Scenes 2003. Heyliger has written articles for various online magazines and journals including: HowlRound, The Dramatist, Continuum and Black Masks.

A producing artist/partner in Twinbiz™, she is the co-recipient of the first National Black Theatre Festival Emerging Producer Award. Heyliger is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, AEA, SDC, SAG-AFTRA and was formerly an adjunct member of the Broadway League. She is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute. Present and past memberships include: League of Professional Theater Women, Harlem Arts Alliance and Theatre Resources Unlimited.

Heyliger has BA and MA degrees from New York University (acting); an MFA in Creative Writing - Playwriting from Queens College; and a Master of Theatre Education from Hunter College having been selected for the Lincoln Center Scholars/Hunter College Alternative Certification Preparation Program for Creative Arts Education. Heyliger has worked as a teaching artist in New York City public schools and most recently served as a drama teacher with Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s Arts Matter Initiative.

A citizen-artist and volunteer leader, Heyliger is a founding member of Organizing for Action and was an Obama Fellow. She lives in Harlem with her husband, Donald.