SOME TYPE OF ECSTASY by Khari Wyatt
In a California plasma collection center questions about what defines family and how much can friends and strangers with broken lives end up being there for each other to mend those lives, cobble together hope and find ways to really listen? The meaning of family is on trial after a business deal gone wrong threatens the solvency of a multi-cultural, multi-generational band of donors as they wrestle with haunting pasts, the hard-scrabble present and uncertain futures. Some Type of Ecstasy asks us to consider what are the circumstances and systemic issues that drive people to literally sell what flows through their veins in order to survive and can love, friendship and trust emerge and find new life?
Khari Wyatt
Khari Wyatt is the descendant of runaway slaves and inner-city America with its adversities, tragedies
and triumphs; the son of high school sweethearts: a mother who is an artist and a father who courageously
moved his young family from the rust-belt to our Nation's Capital to find a better life; the grandson of
men who wore blue collars in auto plants and on railroad trains; the grandson of women who taught
Sunday school and waitressed in greasy spoons. He is a writer.
He was recently a finalist for the New Dramatists Resident Company and a semifinalist for The Geffen
Writers' Room. His play, The One, is being developed in The Road Theatre Company's Under
Construction Playwrights Group. His play, Speakeasy, was chosen for Moving Arts Season’s Readings
play readings series and Antaeus Theatre Company’s Lab Results Reading Series. He was selected to
write and develop his play, Starchild, in the Circle X Theatre Company Evolving Playwrights Group. He
was one of eleven writers of #While We Breathe: A Night of Creative Protest, a streaming theatrical
event produced by Brian Moreland and Arvind Ethan David. His audio plays, “Zip Code 90011 South
Central Los Angeles: Speakeasy” and “Zip Code 91331 Pacoima: Gold & Shine” were commissioned
and produced by Antaeus Theatre Company for its Zip Code Plays podcast. Moving Arts, Antaeus
Theatre Company, Chalk Repertory Theatre as well as the DC Black Theatre Festival have hosted his
plays for readings and workshops. His play “Some Type of Ecstasy” was a semifinalist for the Ashland
New Play Festival and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. His ten-
minute play, “Ingredients,” was produced as part of the Moving Arts- Los Angeles County Museum of
Art’s Night at the Museum.
His other writing work has placed in various competitions including, Disney/ABC Writers Program, Sony
Pictures Entertainment Diversity Writers Program, AMC One-Hour Drama competition and Austin Film
Festival Screenplay Competition among others. Some of the fellowships and grants he has received came
from the Guy Hanks/Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program and the Panavision New Filmmaker
Equipment Grant.
Wyatt is an alumnus of Howard University and earned an MFA in Film from Columbia University in the
City of New York. He is member of Moving Arts, the Playwrights Union, and is a twice selected
MacDowell fellow for playwriting.