Stacy Osei-Kuffour

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Stacy Osei-Kuffour
Born (1987-04-18) April 18, 1987 (age 34)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
OccupationPlaywright, actress, writer
Years active2010���present

Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour is an American playwright, actress, and writer known for her work on Watchmen and PEN15.

She was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2019 for PEN15 and received a Writers Guild Award for her work on Watchmen.

Early life and education[]

Osei-Kuffour was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Denise Poindexter and Godwin Osei-Kuffour. Her mother, a schoolteacher, is Black American and her father, a business owner, is Ghanaian.[1] Her culturally mixed heritage often figures in her work.

After attending at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, Illinois, Osei-Kuffour studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she majored in drama at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. At NYU she met future collaborators Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, both of whom she would later work with on PEN15. She also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

After graduating from NYU, she earned a Master's degree in playwriting from Hunter College. Her one-act play One Course won the Irv Zarkower Award at Hunter in 2014.[2]

Career[]

After struggling for six years to break into the New York City theater scene, Osei-Kuffour moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and writing there. She netted a few acting roles, including three episodes of Accountability Partners. She also continued writing plays, with several being produced. Her play Hang Man premiered in her Chicago home town in the spring of 2018.[1] The COVID-19 pandemic halted the scheduled premiere of her play Animals at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts, but the festival produced it as an audio play in December 2020 starring William Jackson Harper and Aja Naomi King.[3]

Meanwhile she was quickly netting television script work. In 2019 she received an Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series category for the "Anna Ishii-Peters" episode of Hulu's PEN15. She was the only African American woman nominated in that category that year,[4] and only the third in the 70+-year history of the Emmys, after Lena Waithe (who won for Master of None) and Stefani Robinson for Atlanta.[2]

The same year, she was tapped as a member of an all-female writing team for Amazon's series The Power starring Leslie Mann and based on the novel by Naomi Alderman.[5] She also worked as a supervising producer on Apple TV's The Morning Show.[6]

In 2020, her work as a story editor and writer for the HBO series Watchmen earned her a Writers Guild Award (WGA) for Best New Series.[7][8] Also that year she worked as a story editor on Run for HBO and for Amazon’s Hunters.[9]

In January 2020 Hulu tapped her to co-write, with Nnedi Okorafor, a television adaptation of Okorafor's science fiction novella Binti.[10]

In February 2021, it was announced that Osei-Kuffour would write the script for the Blade movie reboot starring Mahershala Ali, making Osei-Kuffour the first Black woman to write a Marvel Studios feature film.[11] The film is scheduled to begin production in July 2022.[12]

She continued her television work in 2021 as well, writing for the Amazon anthology series Solos.

Filmography[]

Year Title Notes
2019 PEN15 Episode: "Anna Ishii-Peters"
2019 Watchmen Episode: "An Almost Religious Awe"
2019 The Morning Show Supervising producer[6]
2020 Hunters Story editor
2020 Run Story editor
2021 Solos Episode: "NERA"
TBA Binti Co-writing with Nnedi Okorafor
TBA The Power
TBA Blade Writer, upcoming Marvel Studios film

As actress[]

Year Title Role Notes
2010 Death (A Love Story) Clown Short film
2014 The Oscar Panel Chiwetel Short film
2014 Plant Judge #2 Episode: "The Brood's All Here"
2015 There Are Ghosts Un­known Short film
2017 Accountability Partners Jessica 3 episodes
2018 Balloon Room Hillary Clinton
2019 PEN15 Mrs. Osei-Kuffour Episode: "Anna Ishii-Peters"
2020 I Think You'd Be Great Kendall Short film

Awards and nominations[]

Year Award Category Work Result Ref.
2019 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series PEN15 (for "Anna Ishii-Peters") Nominated [13]
2020 Writers Guild of America Awards New Series Watchmen Won [14]
Drama Series Nominated
Comedy Series PEN15 Nominated
New Series Nominated

References[]

  1. ^ a b Catey Sullivan (May 14, 2018). "Why Stacy Osei-Kuffour Put a Hanged Man on Stage". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Erik Anderson (August 26, 2019). "Emmy interview: Emmy-nominated 'PEN15' co-writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour". AwardsWatch. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  3. ^ Talaura Harms (December 17, 2020). "World Premiere of Stacy Osei-Kuffour's Animals Available From Williamstown Theatre Festival's Audible Season December 17". Playbill. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  4. ^ Jessica Villagomez (September 18, 2019). "Glenwood native and 'PEN15' writer talks about the passion that fueled her Emmy-nominated episode". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  5. ^ Nellie Andreeva (October 31, 2019). "Leslie Mann To Star In Amazon Series 'The Power' Based On Naomi Alderman's Book". Deadline. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  6. ^ a b ""Write What You Love And What Scares You" Stacy Osei-Kuffour Discusses Writing On Emmy-Nominated 'Pen15'". Creative Screenwriting. August 28, 2019. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  7. ^ Borys Kit (February 5, 2021). "Marvel's 'Blade' Movie Finds Its Writer in 'Watchmen' Scribe (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  8. ^ Patrick Hipes (February 1, 2020). "WGA Awards: 'Parasite', 'Jojo Rabbit' Take Top Film Honors; HBO Sweeps Key TV Nods With 'Succession', 'Barry' & 'Watchmen' – The Complete List Of Winners". Deadline. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  9. ^ Angelique Jackson; Adam V. Vary (February 5, 2021). "Stacy Osei-Kuffour Tapped to Write Marvel's 'Blade' Starring Mahershala Ali". Variety. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  10. ^ Lesley Goldberg (January 14, 2020). "'Binti' Adaptation From Michael Ellenberg in the Works at Hulu (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  11. ^ Kroll, Justin (July 19, 2021). "'Blade': 'Mogul Mowgli' Helmer Bassam Tariq Is Marvel's Choice To Direct New Film Starring Mahershala Ali As Iconic Vampire Hunter". Deadline. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  12. ^ Tatiana Siegel; Borys Kit (May 5, 2021). "Behind Warner Bros.' Search for a Black Superman". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  13. ^ "Stacy Osei-Kuffour - Emmy Awards, Nominations and Wins". Television Academy. Retrieved August 16, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ Beresford, Trilby; Crist, Allison; Chuba, Kirsten; Lewis, Hilary (February 1, 2020). "WGA Awards: 'Parasite' and 'JoJo Rabbit' Among Film Winners". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 16, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links[]

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