Eisa Davis

Eisa Davis (born May 5, 1971) is an American playwright, actress and singer-songwriter.^[1] She is known for her work as the co-creator of the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda.^[2] Her previous works include the plays Bulrusher and Angela's Mixtape. For her stage acting in New York, she won an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance. She resides in Brooklyn.^[3]

Davis was born and spent her childhood in Berkeley, ⁣California.^[4] As a child, she attended dance classes and studied voice and classical piano at the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley.^[5]  She is the niece of political activist Angela Davis. A Davis’ autobiographical play Angela’s Mixtape tells the story of her upbringing in the Bay Area and the impact of her family’s politics on her childhood.^[6] After graduating from Berkeley High School, she earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University. Davis earned her Master of Fine Arts from the Actors Studio at the New School for Social Research, where she double majored in playwriting and acting.^[7] Her dance skills are notable as well, with the dean of her program saying she could have been admitted to Alvin Ailey.^[8]

Davis began working as a professional actress at the age of 10 with appearances on a local television show, then acted in plays, industrials and films throughout high school and college. Davis moved to Los Angeles after college and worked with Anna Deavere Smith on her piece about that city’s uprising, Twilight, Los Angeles: 1992.^[9]

After graduate school, Davis continued to work as an actor in television and film, with roles in The Wire and Soul Food. She became a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, as well as a resident playwright at New Dramatists.^[10] Drawing from her work as a hip hop journalist for Rap Sheet and The Source,^[11] Davis advocated for the hybrid art form that brings together theatre and hip hop by writing essays^[12] and participating in the Hip-Hop Theater Festival.^[13] She also became a poetry fellow at Cave Canem, the esteemed organization for black poets.^[14]

In 2006, Davis’ play Bulrusher premiered at Urban Stages and received a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize.^[15][16] In 2007, Davis won an Obie Award with the ensemble of Passing Strange. The show premiered at Berkeley Rep, but then moved on to Broadway and Davis went with the show, only later to have the whole production filmed by Spike Lee. In 2009, she wrote and starred in Angela's Mixtape. The show was autobiographical and went on to make it into The New Yorker’s list of best plays from that year.^[3]

Davis starred as Addie Pickett, nurse and receptionist at Bluebell, Alabama's local medical practice in The CW's series Hart of Dixie, a fish-out-of-water story about a New York City doctor (Rachel Bilson) adjusting to life in a small Southern town after she inherits a local medical practice.^[17][18]

In 2012/13 Davis was Symphony Space's artist-in-residence.^[1] She taught at Williams College as an Arthur Levitt Fellow for the 2013/14 season.^[7] While continuing to write and act in plays, Davis became more known with roles on House of Cards and Mare of Easttown and Kindred. She also wrote for television for Spike Lee’s Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, as well as on Justified: City Primeval.^[19]

Davis has two albums of her own music, Something Else and Tinctures. Some of her songs have been featured on the Showtime series Soul Food.^[1] Davis also narrated the role of Celestial Davenport Hamilton in the audiobook version of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.^[20] Mushroom, a bilingual play Davis wrote about mushroom pickers around Kennett Square, PA earned several Barrymore nominations after its premiere in 2022.^[21] Her play Bulrusher was produced at Berkeley Rep OCT 27–DEC 3, 2023.^[22]

In 2024, Eisa Davis's play Bulrusher was adapted into an opera by West Edge Opera in Berkeley, California. The production was part of the company's summer festival, bringing Davis's story to a new medium.^[23][24]

Davis believes in the Ghanaian principle of Sankofa. The literal translation of the word is "return and collect it" or "go back and get it". This refers to her use of digging through her own lineage and history to find action and themes that can be used in her plays. She also uses her art to answer questions that "haunt" her or ideas that she is grappling with herself. Much of her artistic philosophy can be summed up in her quote, "Theatre is one of the few public spaces we have for active contemplation."^[25] She explores ideas such as blackness and family through the poetry of her language.^[25]

• Eisa Davis at IMDb