Marcus Gardley

Marcus Gardley is an acclaimed poet, playwright, and screenwriter whom The New Yorker describes as “the heir to Garcia Lorca, Pirandello, and Tennessee Williams.” He most recently wrote the screenplay for the reimagining of THE COLOR PURPLE (2023), which won 11 NAACP Awards – the most nominations and wins in history. He won the 2022 WGA award for Best Adapted TV Longform Series for MAID (Netflix). In 2019, he was named the Library Laureate of San Francisco by the city’s mayor, and on September 26th, the city of Oakland celebrated “Marcus Gardley Day” in his honor. He is the recipient of the 2019 Doris Duke Artist Award. He is a 2019 Obie Award winner for his play The House that will not Stand, the 2015 Glickman Award winner, and a finalist for the 2016 and 2015 Kennedy Prize. Other plays include X: Or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation, black odyssey (2023 Drama Desk nomination), The Gospel of Lovingkindness, every tongue confess, …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, and the road weeps, the well runs dry. In TV, he has written for several series, including Boots Riley’s I’M A VIRGO (Amazon), THE CHI (Showtime), FOUNDATION (Apple), NOS4A2 (AMC), TALES OF THE CITY (Netflix), and MINDHUNTER (Netflix). His Marvin Gaye biopic was picked up by Warner Brothers with Allen Hughes attached to direct. Gardley was born and raised in Oakland, California. He is the current Co-Chair of the Playwriting Program at The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.