Dennis A. Allen II

Dennis A. Allen II is a playwright, director, educator and theatre maker from Hempstead, New York. He came to theatre almost by accident. After earning his B.A. in Communications, he decided to try acting as a “hobby” and landed the role of Moon in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound. The “hobby” became a life’s calling, and Dennis began moving through theatre from every possible doorway: actor, playwright, director, teacher, producer, collaborator. 

As a playwright, Dennis is particularly interested in Black life, racial interaction, untreated trauma, history, masculinity and the stories we inherit about who we are supposed to be. His plays include The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi, winner of the 35th Annual Off Off Broadway Samuel French Short Play Festival; When We Wake Up Dead; The Odds Are...; and Thy Will Be Done. His work has been developed and produced by The New Black Fest, National Black Theatre, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Fire This Time Festival, Working Theater, The Lark Play Development Center, JACK, 48 Hours in Harlem, New York Madness and others.

Dennis is a recipient of Atlantic Theater Company’s inaugural Launch Commission, National Black Theatre’s “I Am Soul” Playwright Residency, Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers Group, and the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award. His writing has also been part of projects including The American Slavery Project’s Unheard Voices, the Schomburg Center’s theatrical presentation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and The New Black Fest’s Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments.

As a director, Dennis is drawn to new work, theatrical experimentation, and the messy process of discovering what a play wants to become. He has directed work at venues including The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Theatre Row, The Kraine Theater and The Wild Project. His directing collaborations include work by Nsangou Njikam, Craig “Mums” Grant and Aziza Barnes, among others.

As an actor, he helped develop and performed in Reid Farrington’s Tyson vs. Ali and the world premiere of Kate Benson’s A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes. He also performed and understudied Nsangou Njikam’s Syncing Ink at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Dennis received his MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College, studying with Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney. He now serves as Coordinator of the MFA Playwriting Program at Brooklyn College, where he works with the next generation of playwrights and continues to build the kind of theatrical community that first made him fall in love with the art form.

He has also taught at LaGuardia Community College, Montclair State University and The New School and has led workshops for artists at institutions including Atlantic Theater Company, National Black Theatre, Indiana University and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Teaching is an extension of his artistic practice. Dennis believes playwrights learn to write plays by learning to see, listen, move, question, fail, revise and pay attention. His classrooms are spaces for experimentation rather than formula, and his approach brings together playwriting, directing, performance, somatics, voice and the lived experience of the artist.

Dennis takes his mantra from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist: “To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation.” For him, that obligation has meant following theatre wherever it leads – and helping create spaces where other artists can do the same.