Kyle Bass(II)
- Writer
Kyle Bass is the author of Tender Rain, which premiered at Syracuse Stage last season, and Possessing Harriet, which premiered at Syracuse Stage and has been produced at Franklin Stage Company, East Lynne Theater Company, HartBeat Ensemble and is published by Standing Stone Books. Salt City Blues was produced at Syracuse Stage in the 21/22 season, and Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country, about a young James Baldwin, was commissioned by Syracuse Stage, has streamed nationally, was recently presented at Brown University and is under option for an international feature film. Toliver & Wakeman was commissioned by and premiered at Franklin Stage Company. His libretto for Libba Cotten: Here This Day, an opera based on the life of American folk music legend Libba Cotten, was commissioned by The Society for New Music. With Ping Chong, Kyle is the co-author of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which premiered at Syracuse Stage and was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. His other full-length plays include Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers, which has been presented at Cornell University, Colgate University, the University of Delaware, and Syracuse University, and Separated, a documentary theatre piece about student military veterans at Syracuse University, which was presented at Syracuse Stage and the Paley Center in New York, and Leeboe & Sons. Kyle is the co-author of the original screenplay for the film Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017) and is a three-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Award, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. He is currently developing a television series with co-writer Jaffe Cohen. As dramaturg, Kyle has collaborated with acclaimed visual artist Carrie Mae Weems, and was the script consultant on Thoughts of a Colored Man, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2019 and opened on Broadway in 2021. Kyle is Assistant Professor of Theater at Colgate University, where he previously served as Burke Chair for Regional Studies. He has also taught in the M.F.A. creative writing program at Goddard College, at Syracuse University, and at Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Kyle was the Susan P. Stroman Visiting Playwright at the University of Delaware and the Flournoy Visiting Playwright at Washington & Lee University. He holds an M.F.A. in playwriting from Goddard College, is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America and is represented by the Barbara Hogenson Agency. A descendant of African people enslaved in New England and the American South, Kyle resides and writes in Upstate New York where his family has lived free and owned land for nearly 225 years.