Dhari Noel (he/him/they/them/Dhari) is a Queer Black-Caribbean playwright, performer, and educator born and raised in Harlem. Dhari’s writing often explores the incoherence of race, the failures of gender, and inherited ways of being. As a teacher, Dhari uses storytelling, social justice, and interdisciplinary studies, all in an effort to examine systems of power.
Readings and performances of Dhari’s work have been supported through deep community engagement, most particularly in collaboration with the good people at Cherry Picking, The Wild Project, ECFS, and Brown University. Recent plays include: Penguin Sex With Mr. Morgan (ANTfest @ Are Nova, Brown University); Man Made, Spirit Junkie (Cherry Picking/The Wild Project); Exorcism for The DEI Practitioner, The Women Who Dance… (Cherry Picking); Introduce Yourself, and Keep The Orange (ECFS).
Dhari performs in Dhari’s own pieces and has had the pleasure of collaborating with many dear friends. Recent performances include Penguin Sex With Mr. Morgan (ANTfest @ Are Nova, Brown University); Man Made, Spirit Junkie (Cherry Picking, The Wild Project); Black Exhibition (Bushwick Starr); In The Penal Colony (Next Door @NYTW); The Essential Ella Maythorne (Dixon Place); Telegraph Bois (ANTfest @Ars Nova).
This summer, Dhari will be a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee Writers Conference and an Emerging LGBTQ Voices fellow at Lambda Literary’s writing retreat. Dhari’s graduate studies are supported by an Adele Kellenberg Seaver 1949 Fellowship in Creative Writing.
Dhari received a BA in Sociology from Columbia University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at Brown University. Dhari is adjusting but misses the Harlem noises.