It was difficult to write (my pilot) Piney Ridge. During the more challenging scenes, I cried. I cried because it was scary. There were scenes on the page I had never seen before on television. Great stories written in this way can impact the world and this is how I choose to write.
La'Chris Jordan
Filmmaker, Playwright, Novelist, Actor
BIOGRAPHY
Before acting, writing and directing for the stage, LA’CHRIS JORDAN was a journalist who spent several years abroad in the Middle East where she was a feature writer for a weekly lifestyle magazine in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Since then, La’Chris has published three books and received over 60 awards, grants and honors for her work including being a winner in The Script Lab’s 2019 Screenplay Contest for her pilot PINEY RIDGE which is currently ranked #3 on Coverfly's Red List in the Top 20 Historical TV Pilot Category. Jordan’s body of work includes themes such as injustice, oppression, corruption, and the duality of human nature, particularly as it relates to women struggling for equality in a patriarchal society.
La'Chris is the recipient of several playwriting grants from Artist Trust, the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, the D.C. Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, to name a few. Early on in her playwriting career, La’Chris was named ‘One of the 50 Playwrights to Watch’ by the Dramatists Guild and a semifinalist for the Lila Acheson American Playwriting Program at Juilliard. La’Chris’ plays have been produced and developed at the Kennedy Center, Urban Stages, ACT Theatre, Seattle Rep, Arkansas Rep, the NAACP Theatre Festival, Robey Theatre, the National Black Theatre Festival and the Essential Theatre in Washington, DC, to name a few. Additionally, her work has been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and Artist Trust, among others.
As a screenwriter, La’Chris’ work has placed in several high-level competitions and screenwriting labs including the Sundance Episodic Lab, the MACRO/The Black List Episodic Lab, Austin Film Festival (Second Rounder) and the SAGindie Fellowship at Stowe Story Labs. In February 2020, La’Chris made her directorial debut with JANUARY 14TH, which was an Official Selection of the Academy Award Qualifying Pan African Film Festival. Inspired by true events, JANUARY 14TH won Best Short and Best Director in the Top Indie Film Awards along with four nominations in additional categories. An alum of the University of Washington in Seattle, La’Chris is the author of four books as well as the founder of BlackCinemadb.com, an online database of over 700 films and documentaries from the African American and African diaspora.