Spotlight On: Ann E. Eskridge

Ann E. Eskridge (she/her/hers) is an accomplished playwright, former Kresge Fellow, and is a member of the Extra Mile Playwrights Theatre. 

Ann E. Eskridge

How did you get started in the arts?

I always loved to write. I can remember asking my mother to type up stories that I would dictate to her. I was in the first grade. I also loved to dance. My father tried to bribe me to learn the piano since he played piano. I said no. The effort was like learning math--and I hated math. I decided to dance instead. So, writing and dance.

If you could direct/produce one show, what would it be and why?

I would never direct a piece. I think a director has to have a special talent and an incredible ability to understand bodies in space and time. I wouldn't mind producing a series of musicals, particularly black musicals---finding the investors, sponsors, and developing a core group of artists. I would love to develop them in Detroit. I am not interested in Broadway, but I am interested in diverse audiences so that would call for a different way of developing musicals and distributing them. And then of course you would create your own publishing company to license.

If you could play one character in all of theatre or film, who would it be and why?

I'm going to say that I have several older and wiser characters in several of my plays. These characters don't have an education, but they have "mother wit". They tell it like it is, are honest, have integrity and they may be a little eccentric---okay, a lot eccentric, but they are compassionate. I hope that I've grown into being one of my own characters.

Name two artistic role models and why you look up to them.

This is hard: Performance, Whoopie Goldberg and Jeffery Wright. That's because Whoopie, and her acting and comedy paved the way for other female unconventional actors. Jeffery Wright, because he's just so damn good.

Playwrights several: Horton Foote Lynn Nottage, and Dominique Morisseau (espcially Detroit 67), all three write both plays and screen plays.

What did you want to be when you were a child? Are you fulfilling that dream?

I didn't know what I wanted to be. I knew what I didn't want to be and that was a teacher. My dad was a teacher and he worked really hard. Well, after 15 different kinds of jobs from news reporting to being in politics to doing PR, I became a teacher.

What is your artistic guilty pleasure?

Being able to roll out of bed and go to my office and write still wearing my pajamas.

What is your dream for the Michigan Arts Community?

My dream is to capatalize on the talent that is here and create a synergy among the art organization and artists here to use that talent. Create more collaborations. Create more cross pollination between different kinds of art and to get adequate funding to do so.

What Role/Show/Experience on your resume is the most memorable, and why?

That's easy when Brother Future, the movie I wrote, was shown nationally on PBS. I also had a premiere. It was memorable for a number of reasons. First, I didn't have to go to Hollywood to get the movie produced. I wrote it in Detroit. Second, my students at that time were my inspiration for writing the screenplay in the first place. Third, the story's location was Detroit, even though it was filmed in South Carolina. And last, I did something that people said it was not possible to do, I got a movie made that was about a black kid and black history.