Lonnie Carter’s play THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO received eight (8) Obies for its production by the Ma-Yi Theatre Company in 2003. 2005.
His plays have been produced by The Yale Repertory Theater, the American Place Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, the Long Wharf Theater and at the first Asian-American Theater Festival in New York City (2007), the Los Angeles Theater Center’s Latino Theater Festival (also 2007) and festivals abroad (the Philippines and Romania).
His plays include China Calls, The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy, The Gulliver Plays (Lemuel, Gulliver, and Gulliver Redux, published by Broadway Play Publishing), Baby Glo, Wheatley (the Colonial HippeHoppe story of Phillis Wheatley, (also published by Broadway Play Publishing), Concerto Chicago, and most recently The Lost Boys of Sudan, produced by the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis (Tony Winner for Best Regional Theatre 2003). The Lost Boys (and Girl) of Sudan was produced by Victory Gardens Theater (Tony Award for Best Regional Theater, 2001) in 2010.
His most recent plays include
- 1781, the Story of MuBet, the first enslaved person to win her freedom in a Court of Law was read at The Center on Main, Falls Village, CT, June 2025 and at The Playwrights’ Horizons Downtown, New York City, September, 2025.
- MANILA, based on the author’s Filipino experiences in The States and in the Philippines. Characters – General Douglas MacArthur, Emjoy Tongi, his teenage mistress), Father James Reuter, S,J. And Sister Ofelia Bernadetta Chastitata (Father Reuter’s Filipina caretaker).
- THE BOOK OF GWEN, workshopped at Hartbeat Ensemble in Hartford, CT, about the woman Gwendolyn Reed who played Aunt Jemima throughout the Northeast.
- THE LOST FURLOUGH, exploring the Harlem Renaissance and World War II. Characters Langston Hughes, Carl Van Vechten, et alia.
He is a charter member of the Victory Gardens Playwrights’ Ensemble. (Victory Gardens was the Tony Winner for Best Regional Theatre 2001). He is an Alumnus of New Dramatists in New York and the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and Marquette University, a Guggenheim Fellow and twice a Fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. He has taught at the Hammerstein Theater Center Columbia University, the Tisch School of the Arts New York University, the University of Hartford and as the Jenny McKean Fellow at The George Washington University.
His columns appear in The Lakeville Journal under the heading “Sovereign State”, titled so because of his signature play THE SOVEREIGN STATE OF BOOGEDY BOOGEDY.
He may be reached at Lonniety@comcast.net.