ABOUT LAY
Writer Director ACTOR Producer
Layon Gray is an award-winning playwright, director, producer, and actor dedicated to creating powerful theatrical works that illuminate overlooked chapters of American history and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. Originally from Louisiana, he relocated to Los Angeles in 2000 and quickly established himself as one of the nation's leading playwrights, earning more than 60 awards and nominations throughout his career.
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His honors include the 2024 NYC Audelco Special Achievement Award, the 2019 Detroit Distinguished Playwright Award, the 2018 Carbonell Awards for Best Director, Best Ensemble, and Best Production, and the inaugural Broadway League Fellowship in 2016, where he worked alongside Broadway producers Sue Frost and Randy Adams during the development of the Tony Award-winning musical Come From Away.
Additional honors include the 2012 NYC Inspire Award, Al Sharpton Man of Vision Award, PCTF Award for Best Director, the 2009 NAACP Award for Best Ensemble, the 2009 Hollywood ADA Award for Best Ensemble, and being named the 2008 MATCH-LIFE Artist of the Year.
His internationally acclaimed play Black Angels Over Tuskegee, honoring the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad.
The production has been performed for thousands of students, at major performing arts centers, museums, military organizations, and privately for several National Football League teams, including the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, and Los Angeles Chargers.
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Gray is currently developing the original musical New Orleans in the prestigious BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City. He is also preparing Foxx/Pryor, a two-man play imagining a meeting between comedy legends Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx, with a workshop presentation planned for Winter 2026.
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His critically acclaimed play Cowboy, about legendary U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves, enjoyed a ten-month Off-Broadway run and became the first full-scale Western produced On or Off-Broadway in nearly eighty years. The production will continue its national tour with a performance in Oakland in August 2026.
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In 2025, Gray was selected by the La Napoule Art Foundation and La Maison Baldwin for a prestigious artist residency on the French Riviera, becoming one of only four Black writers worldwide chosen for the program.
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His play Feed the Beast, which examines the Tuskegee Medical Experiments, premiered to critical acclaim at the 2024 International Black Theatre Festival and later received a regional production at New Horizon Theatre in Pittsburgh. This summer, he returns to the International Black Theatre Festival with a mainstage production of his acclaimed play Searching for Willie Lynch, performing July 28 and 29 2026.
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Layon is also developing Century of Oaths, an ambitious four-play theatrical cycle exploring the courage, sacrifice, and resilience of Black Americans who served in each branch of the United States Armed Forces during the defining wars of the twentieth century.
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The cycle follows the stories of Black servicemen and women who answered their nation's call despite inequality at home, honoring their service across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.
Following the worldwide success of Black Angels Over Tuskegee,
(Air Force) Gray is currently putting the finishing touches on the second play in his Century of Oaths cycle, Boys of the Bamboo. ( Vietnam Army)
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