Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Black, Haitian-American NYC-born and based writer, director, choreographer, dramaturg, performer, and educator who creates vortexes through a [Afro]surrealist lens, often in dialogue with landscape dramaturgy. 

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She was the winner of the 2023 Princess Grace Playwriting Award/New Dramatists Residency. Her play, Letiche and The [Wondrous] Pursuit of Elvis was one of three Shortlisters for The 2025 Yale Drama Series Prize (selected by Pulitzer Prize-winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins). She is also a 2025-2026 MacDowell Fellow.

 

She is a member of EST/Youngblood, Lucille Lortel’s Alcove, The New George’s Jam, and TAG at The Tank. She was a member of Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers Group, Roundabout’s Directors Group (Cohort 6), and a Mercury Store Lead Artist. She has also been a Finalist for The National Black Theatre's I AM SOUL Playwrights Residency and New York Theater Workshop's 2050 Artistic Fellowship, 

 

As a playwright, select plays include: Letiche... (Yale Drama Series Shortlist, O'Neill Finalist, National Black Theatre Special Project, Bushwick Starr SRS), Being Up in Here… (Princess Grace, Exponential Festival), Rollback (O'Neill Finalist, Clubbed Thumb ECWG), You Can Tell from the Twisted Juniper (O'Neill Finalist, Chautauqua Theater Company's New Play Workshop, Workshop Theater Intensive), Blue Fire Burns the Hottest (Exponential Festival, Orchard Project Performance Lab), and deadbodydeadbodydeadbody (Ars Nova ANT Fest).

 

As a director, Marissa has directed and assistant directed the development of new work of playwrights and of herself through productions and workshops with The National Black Theatre, The Vineyard, BAM, New Dramatists, Brown University, Exponential Festival, Synecdoche Works, Mercury Store, Conch Shell Productions, The Brick, SFX Festival, Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, NYU/Tisch, and more.

 

She has also collaborated with The Public Theater, 24 Hour Plays, Moxie Arts, Fire This Time Festival, 48 Hours... in Harlem, Dixon Place, Irondale, The Anthropologists, New Ohio Theatre, Keen Company, Wild Project, BUFU, and more.

 

Marissa is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. She served as Literary Manager at The Workshop Theater from 2022-2025, has taught at Brooklyn College, and has guest lectured at Brooklyn College, NYU, Hunter College and The Windward School.

 

She graduated with her MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College, studying under Haruna Lee, Dennis A. Allen II, and Elana Greenfield. She received her BFA in Drama and BA in Journalism from NYU. marissajoycestamps.com @marissajoycestamps

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Marissa also really likes dark chocolate, hiking, bodies of water, rollercoasters, spaghetti westerns, the 49ers, and Rockaway Beach sunsets. She will own a cacao farm one day.