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

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She has previously won the Princess Grace Playwriting Award/New Dramatists Residency. Currently, she is a Van Lier New Voices Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, a Clubbed Thumb New Play Directing Fellow, and a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow. Her play, Letiche and The [Wondrous] Pursuit of Elvis was a Finalist for The 2025 Yale Drama Series Prize (selected by Pulitzer Prize-winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins). She has been a MacDowell Fellow and Caldera Artist-in-Residence. She is also featured in The Kilroys 2025 Web.

 

She is a member of EST/Youngblood, Lucille Lortel’s Alcove, Breaking & Entering's LINE UP, a Creative Director in Immersive Design Academy, and a New Georges Affiliate Artist. She was a member of Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers Group, Roundabout’s Directors Group (Cohort 6), The New George’s Jam, and was 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, Ojai 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, Vineyard Theatre, MCC Theater, BAM, Ars Nova, New Dramatists, Mercury Store, The Brick, Exponential Festival, Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, CATCH Performance Series, Center at West Park, Brown University, Brooklyn College, Seven Devils, Conch Shell Productions, and more. 

 

Marissa is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. ​She currently serves on Big Break Foundation's Pivoting Professionals Advocacy Council and on Breaking & Entering's Artistic Programming Committee. 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 has written for BOMB and 3Views. 

 

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 Niners, and beach sunsets. She will own a cacao farm one day.