Biography
(Sharrell D. Luckett)
Sharrell D. Luckett, PhD, is celebrated as one of the most influential leaders and theorists of her generation in the performing arts. An award-winning theatre director, #1 best-selling author, distinguished professor, and arts administrator, she has also been described as someone who can create, perform, and teach with equal brilliance.
In 2021, she was honored by Black Masks magazine as one of 25 Black Theatre Game Changers in the field. She was recently nominated for the Paul Robeson Award by Actors’ Equity Association.
Reared in the “Black Mecca,” Atlanta is where Sharrell first began cultivating her many talents, writing poetry and songs at a very young age. As a teen, she auditioned for and was accepted into the top-ranked drama program at Tri-Cities High School for the Visual & Performing Arts, sharing an artistic lineage with the likes of Outkast, Kandi Burruss, and Kenan Thompson.
At Tri-Cities, Sharrell trained with acclaimed theatre educator Freddie Hendricks. Hendricks became one of her greatest artistic influences. His teachings about being a consummate artist helped her to quickly flourish into a strong actor and director.
(Sharrell D. Luckett works with Jeryl Pennyman on audition techniques.)
While a student at Georgia State University, Sharrell studied music business law and artist management with some of the top entertainment lawyers in the southeast. Around this time, she was also discovered by Paragon Management, a talent agency that represented songwriters and producers. Signed to write music, Sharrell ended up in recording studios with artists like Ciara, Young Jeezy, and Janelle Monáe, eventually co-writing Edge of My Life with independent recording artist-legend RAHBI. Sharrell was on her way to more song placements when she received a call “out of the blue” from a former drama classmate. Though she had sworn off teaching, she agreed to temporarily cover his acting class and directing responsibilities at a local high school in Atlanta. She ended up staying the entire year. The rest is history!
Sharrell and Dr. Tia M. Shaffer’s #1 Best-Selling, award-winning book, Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches, introduced and defined the field of “black acting methods.” This achievement made Sharrell and the work of the Black Acting Methods Studio vanguards in the movement to transform the way we teach performing arts.
Spanning the disciplines of theatre, black studies, performance studies, and fat studies, Sharrell’s other celebrated books include:
YoungGiftedandFat: An Autoethnography of Size, Sexuality, and Privilege
African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity
Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration (co-edited)
Transweight: Poems From an Undercover Fat Girl
In addition to co-penning four musicals, publishing nearly thirty essays and giving talks and Master Classes at nearly seventy institutions, Sharrell also published a chapter in Running the Long Race in Gifted Education, a book nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. She has also been a Fellow at renowned institutions, such as the Lincoln Center, Harvard University and 92Y. She holds a doctorate in Theatre from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
(Sharrell D. Luckett, Connan Morrissey, and Bryant Bentley in Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s production of Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline.)
A proud member of the Stage Directors & Choreographers Society and Actors’ Equity Association, Sharrell recently starred as Nya in Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline at Ensemble Theatre in Cincinnati. Prior to that, she served as dramaturg for Lynn Nottage’s Ruined at Hattiloo Theatre, under the Artistic Direction of Katori Hall (P-Valley on Starz). Sharrell made her Off-Broadway directorial and performance debut with her solo show, YoungGiftedandFat. Her complementary webisode series, “The Making of YoungGiftedandFat” chronicles her journey in creating, co-directing, and touring her show.
As a theatre director and acting teacher, Sharrell has staged canonical works, such as Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, Ruined by Lynn Nottage, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and adapted by Lydia Diamond, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, and In the Red and Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney. Her acting students have been scouted by 20th Century Fox, Joy Pervis Talent Agency, and Wilhelmina. They have also won myriad awards in acting competitions, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Ensemble.
Additionally, Sharrell manages a top celebrity Influencer and actor with a viral reach of over 200 million views across all social media platforms.
At the University of Cincinnati, Sharrell is Director of the Helen Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting, Taft Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, affiliate faculty in the departments of Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and faculty collaborator with one of the nation’s leading performance conservatories, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). From 2020-2023, she served on the Independent Equity Committee at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
In 2023, Sharrell made history as the first African-American appointed as Editor-in-Chief of SETC’s award-winning Southern Theatre magazine since its origins in 1959.
Sharrell is the founding CEO of the Black Acting Methods Studio, a face-to-face, virtual, and mobile performance training institution.