“When stories die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”
Sue Monk Kidd
Who even is dhp?
DIRECTOR • CONSULTANT • PLAYWRIGHT • POET • ACTOR • CULTURAL WORKER
With almost 10 years in the industry under their belt, DAVID H. PARKER (they/them) is an award-winning artist from Birmingham, AL, a blue island in the US South’s sea of red. Intersectionality informs the base of their work, but the intersection of Blackness and Queerness is always at the top of their priorities.
David has worked on and Off-Broadway; was a recipient of the inaugural Cody Renard Richard Scholarship; invited to the inaugural GLAAD Black Queer Creative Summit; invited as a cultural organizer to the Highlander Research and Education Center where the likes of Rosa Parks and Angela Davis trained; was a member of the inaugural Rogue Machine Playwrights Roundtable; is a member of The Workshop Theater's Fall 2024 Intensive; is Co-Artistic Director of the Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective; and is the SDCF Shadow Associate Director to Keenan Tyler Oliphant on HADESTOWN on Broadway.
David holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). They have worked as a Teaching Associate at UCLA as well as guest teaching artist engagements with the University of Oregon and University of Alabama at Birmingham's Arts in Medicine.
As a Type-A Virgo whose only real claim to fame is how they once won a beautiful baby contest... they need a surprising number of naps.
Photographed by LaQuann Dawson
WHAT'S THE PRESS GOT TO SAY?
GLAAD Ambassador
CanvasRebel Interview
GLAAD Ambassador
Forbes, Teen Vogue, and The Grio on the Black Queer Creative Summit
WHAT IS DHP WORKING ON NOW?
FREAKZSHOW, OR: let ya freak flag fly! but we ain't giving you wings... (2024 Fall Workshop)
Facilitated by Roger Q. Mason & Avi Klipfel
Slated to be produced at The Tank by Carlton V Bell II in Summer 2025.
WHAT HAS DHP RECENTLY DIRECTED/CREATED?
FREAKZSHOW, OR: let ya freak flag fly! but we ain't giving you wings... (2024 Summer Reading)
For six months this year, Rogue Machine Theater's Inaugural Playwright's Roundtable brought together early to mid-career playwrights, some of whom are returning to theater after finding success in film and television, to write new plays from scratch.
THE INHERITANCE THEATER PROJECT (2024)
Made in collaboration with hundreds of community co-creators, Los Angeles became the stage for this new theatrical event created to hold the beautiful complexities of the city.
Directed by David H. Parker & Zhailon Levingston
Written by Jamal K. Wade, Darian Dauchan, & Sarah Cohen
FAT HAM (2024 Broadway Transfer)
See what the New York Times calls “a hilarious yet profound tragedy smothered in comedy,” in this Pulitzer Prize–winning take on Hamlet by James Ijames, direct from Broadway to Los Angeles.
Original Direction by Saheem Ali
Director: Sideeq Heard
Associate Director: David H. Parker
Starring: Nikki Crawford, Chris Herbie Holland, Billy Eugene Jones, Adrianna Mitchell, Marcel Spears, Benja Kay Thomas, and Matthew Elijah Webb
FAIRVIEW (2024)
MFA THESIS ... 8 SOLD OUT SHOWS! I directed the Pulitzer Prize-Winning play by Jackie Sibblies Drury in its Los Angeles debut as my MFA Thesis at UCLA. Our concept interrogated surveillance of Black communities using a middle class family as the lens through which perpetration often occurs. The production utilized live cameras, sourced visual material, as well as cinematically pre-filmed footage to set the stage for the audience and unceremoniously disrupt it.
Don't believe me? Let's ask the audience!
"For a piece I saw twice in NYC--the original at SoHo Rep, and then the remount at Theatre for a New Audience--to still rock me to the core for the third time, all these years later at UCLA is truly something to celebrate... [David's] production and every single human a part of it doing magical, spellbinding work with [Jackie Sibblies Drury]'s masterpiece. Nothing short of amazing and important." -- LARRY POWELL
"[The production] made me want to keep making art and loving life." -- XAVIER BROWN
TELL ME I’M GORGEOUS AT THE END OF THE WORLD: THE LAST GAY PLAY (2023)
Tell Me I’m Gorgeous at the End of the World: The Last Gay Play, a 2022 Yale Drama Series Finalist and 2-time Eugene O'Neill Conference Finalist, is about the (sometimes literal) earth-moving influence that Black and brown Queer people have when they try to exist in white spaces not only unintended for them, but in which they are rendered completely invisible.
Written by Aaron Coleman
Directed by David H. Parker
Stage Manager: Alexandria Hamilton
Lighting Design: Gabe Rodriguez
Costume Design: Emma Beeman
Sound Design: Malick Ceesay
Scenic Design: Jay Tyson
PATIENCE (2022)
A sports-inspired fantasia, Patience is a meditation on Black excellence, next chapters, and playing a very long game alone. This Off-Broadway world premiere was produced by 2nd Stage.
Written by Johnny G. Lloyd
Director: Zhailon Levingston
Associate Director: David H. Parker
Starring: Justiin A. Davis, Jonathan Burke, Nemuna Ceesay, Zainab Barry, and Mary E. Hodges
BLACKSIGHTERS (2022)
Winner of the 2022 George Burns and Gracie Allen Award in Comedy.
Directed, edited, and written by David H. Parker
Starring: Devin Tyrique Franklin and Briana Lené
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE? (2020)
Is Anybody Out There? is a premiere virtual dance opera that explores a new medium combining traditional theatre and experimental film while its characters grappled head on with isolation, sexual expression, and their own morality.
Produced by Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Collective
Written by Carlton V Bell II
Director: David H. Parker
Cinematography: Dez Wilson
Edited and scored by Aija Penix
Starring: Devin Tyrique Franklin, Rachel Simonne, and Michael Charles