Harold Ellis Clark is a New Orleans playwright and award-winning radio host. He has been named a co-awardee of a Carol Sutton/Sherri Marina Memorial Grant for his stage play-Back in the Day.
Clark was a finalist for the 2020 Trustus Playwright’s Festival in Columbia, South Carolina. He received a grant to support the premiere of his play, which is tentatively scheduled for June 2023 at Dillard University’s Samuel DuBois Cook Hall Theatre.
The Carol Sutton/Sherri Marina Memorial Grant was launched in 2021 by Brian Sands, a theatre critic for Ambush Magazine. The award is in honor of both veteran actors who unfortunately passed away in 2020. Sutton appeared in over 100 films and TV projects, including Queen Sugar, The Help, Ray and True Detective. Marina was in the 2017 film, Girls Trip, appeared in many stage productions and was a professor of theatre at Dillard and Loyola universities.
The annual grant supports new plays featuring African-American actors, especially on stories highlighting Black women in leading roles. Sands is in the process of establishing relationships with theatres in New York who may want to produce new works by grant awardees.
Clark has a career outside of playwriting. He is the Vice President of Communications, External Affairs and Fund Development for DePaul Community Health Centers. He also works in both radio and public relations.
He was named a finalist for the Stanley Drama Award for his plays Tour Detour (2013), Uncle Bobby 63 (2015), and Madame Thames’ Spirit Bar (2016).
