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YOUR SPECIAL GUEST ARTIST - LEE COLSTON

Lee Edward Colston II is a Black, Queer, former prison guard & MMA Fighter turned multi-hyphenated artist. This Philly native’s multi-hyphenates include: actor, playwright, screenwriter, director, producer, acting teacher, writing coach, and author. In 2017, Colston became a finalist for the Shonda Rhimes 'Unsung Voices' Playwriting Commission and a recipient of the National Black Theatre 'I Am Soul' playwriting fellowship. His play, THE FIRST DEEP BREATH, was selected to be part of the Victory Gardens IGNITION Festival of New American Plays in 2018 and received a full production in Chicago of November 2019. The Chicago Sun Times called it “the kind of theatrical event you’ll want to be able to say you saw first” and theatre critic Kris Vire named it “one of the best Chicago plays of the decade.” Recently, it was announced that Colston is one of three recipients of the 2020 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award given by the American Theatre Critics Association. Past recipients include August Wilson, Lynn Nottage, and Horton Foote. Colston was staffed on the latest season of FARGO (FX) starring Chris Rock and wrote on ABC’s FOR LIFE. He previously developed KILL CRAZY for HBO with Academy Award Winners Laura Dern, Eric Roth and Alex Gibney. He has also developed at FX with Emmy Award winners Joe Fields & Joel Weisberg. Currently, he is writing and producing on Ryan Murphy’s highly-anticipated AMERICAN CRIME STORY spin-off AMERICAN SPORTS STORY: GLADIATOR about disgraced NFL player Aaron Hernandez. He is also currently developing a new series with FARGO and THE HANDMAID’S TALE Emmy Award Winning Producer Warren Littlefield. Colston earned his MFA in Acting at The Juilliard School.