La’Chris is an actor, poet, novelist and award-winning playwright who was named one of the 
“50 to WATCH” by the Dramatists Guild of America. Her debut novel "The Memories of Bellevue" 
was released in May 2014 and has already received favorable reviews. She is currently at work on the second book in the Bellevue Trilogy, "The Roses I Left Behind", which is due to be released in summer 2015. 

 

La'Chris' is best known for her plays which have been produced and developed in theatres across the country including Urban Stages, Karamu House, ACT Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, Ashland New Play Festival, the National Black Theatre Festival, the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and the NAACP Theatre Festival. La'Chris is also a past participant of the Robey Theatre's Playwrights Lab under the artistic direction of Ben Guillory where she worked on her latest full-length play "All That We Know". In addition to numerous awards and honors, La'Chris has received artist grants from the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Artist Trust and the Rockefeller Foundation (Voices at the River Playwriting Residency). La'Chris was also a semifinalist for Juilliard's 2013 ​Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwriting Program.

La'Chris is known for creating thought-provoking plays such "Piney Ridge," "Haram/Forbidden", and "A Moment of Faith" (Finalist, Hidden River Arts Playwriting Award) which was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, as part of Essential Theatre’s New Play Reading Series under the artistic direction of S. Robert Morgan of HBO's critically-acclaimed "The Wire." ​In 2012, La'Chris' play "Roses in the Water" was selected as a finalist for the Ashland New Play Festival and a semifinalist for the 2012 Reverie Production's Next Generation Playwriting Contest in New York. "Roses in the Water" was also a 3rd place winner in the Write Movies International Competition, beating out over 1,000 scripts from around the world; the play won the 2010 Jewel Box Theatre Playwriting Competition for Best Original Play, and was also selected for the Voices at the River Playwriting Residency in Little Rock, Arkansas (dir. Rajendra Maharaj Maroon). In addition to theatre, La'Chris is an actress who has performed in well-known classics such as "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "One Flew Over the was Cuckoo's Nest," "The Crucible" and "Hamlet."

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La'Chris is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, the International Centre for Women Playwrights, and Towne Street Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. She also served as a board member for the Northwest Playwrights Alliance and was a teaching artist with the ACT Theatre's Young Playwrights Program (YPP). A broadcast journalism graduate of the University of Washington, La'Chris currently resides in Los Angeles, California.