Bio

Nikki Skies is an accomplished poet/author, playwright, dramaturg and actor. She is best known for her fiery performances as a featured poet in venues across the country opening for the likes of Sonia Sanchez, Gloria Steinem and the late Amiri Baraka. Skies was recently announced as the 2022-2023 New Play Development Apprentice for Working Title Playwrights, a new play incubator and service organization based in Atlanta.

For television, Skies was cast as a co-star for the late John Singleton’s television drama, “Rebel”. She was also served as the creative writer for the drama and for the digital series, “Rebel Yell.” Skies has been featured nationally on BET’s spoken word show “Lyric Café”, and was the narrator for “The Lucille Bluford Story” on PBS Television.

In theatre, Skies’ one woman show in which she portrayed Black Panther and activist, the late Afeni Shakur, mother of Tupac Shakur, was commissioned as a fundraising event for Morehouse College. In addition to lengthy experience in theatre as an actor, director, and playwright, her latest play, Seasons is Her Name, debuted at the 2022 Mid American Theatre Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2017, her play, Hope’s Return, had its debut at the esteemed National Black Theatre Festival as a part of the New Works Reader’s Theatre among a national selection of over 400 plays. More recently, Skies portrayed Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean at the University of Georgia and has been commissioned to write an educational play on Black women mathematicians through the RISE grant in collaboration with University of South Carolina at Beaufort faculty.

A firm believer in the power of education, the Grambling State University alumna (B. A. in Theatre/Acting), studied in the Masters Film program for Screenplay Writing at Howard University, received a M.A. in Africana Women’s Studies from Clark Atlanta University, and is currently a doctoral student in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Georgia where she recently matriculated with a graduate certificate in African American Studies .  Her research focuses on the creative production of Black women, in particular the works of Black women dramatists and how they create meaning in black feminist thought through monologues.

Skies was recently rewarded recognition with the Lee Roy B. Giles Encouragement Award for her developing scholarship in Performance Studies. She was also a previous Dana Arts Fellow integrating literary arts with lesson planning in rural Alabama elementary schools. Her poem, One Day White Woman, has been used as curriculum in the Oakland’s Women Prison System, Orange County middle schools in California, and for the multicultural/diversity lyceum programming at San Diego State University. The Town Dance, Skies dramatic debut fiction novel, is current curriculum in Purdue University’s Women Gender and Sexuality Studies Department.

She is the author of a collection of short stories entitled, Mississippi Window Cracks, two books of poetry and prose, Pocket Honey, Wind & Hips and yardwork and is the creator and editor for She Chronicles, an annual celebratory collection of literary works by and about women. Skies is currently adjunct faculty at Spelman College in the Arts and Visual Culture Department. For booking inquiries email to nikkiskies@yahoo.com

(Photo Credit-Kim Roseberry)

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