Alan Sharpe
Alan Sharpe was recently named the inaugural recipient of the Alan Sharpe Award, created by the Center for Black Equity and DC Black Pride to honor cultural contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.
His work began in 1970 as a freshman film student at Boston University and continued in Washington, DC, where he co-founded a theater company that became African-American Collective Theater (ACT). In the early ’90s, ACT shifted its mission to focus exclusively on LGBTQ themes.
Over three decades, Sharpe, an HIV+ artist, has written and directed 120+ plays, films, and a web series celebrating Black LGBTQIA+ life. He is a founding member of Brave Soul Collective and an active member of APEX, UPU, NPX, and the Dramatists’ Guild. His short play Bedtime Story was featured in Houston’s 2019 Fade-to-Black Festival. He received a 2018–19 DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship and was selected for Arena Stage’s 2019 Playwrights’ Arena program.