Donnetta Lavinia Grays

Donnetta Lavinia Grays – raised in Columbia, South Carolina - is a Brooklyn based actor and playwright. 

Acting credits: Broadway: In The Next Room Or The Vibrator Play and Well. 

Notable NY performance credits: O, Earth (The Foundry Theatre) Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb), Shipwrecked! (Primary Stages),

In The Footprint and Be The Death Of Me with The Civilians as an Associate Artist. 

Regionally she is a 2-time Connecticut Critics Circle Award recipient and Helen Hayes Award nominee. 

Regional credits: American Conservatory Theater, Portland Stage Company, Westport Country Playhouse, Arena Stage, Hartford Theaterworks, Centerstage, The Huntington Theatre, Barrington Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company. 

Film/TV credits include Book of Henry, Wild Canaries, Tje English Teacher, The Wrestler, Blue Bloods, The Blacklist, all Law & Order, The Sopranos and A Gifted Man with recurring rolls on Law and Order: SVU, Mercy and Rubicon. 

Plays include Last Night and the Night Before (2015 National New Play Network New Play Showcase. 2015 Todd McNerney National Playwriting Contest Winner. 2014 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist), The Review of How to Eat Your Opposition (2013 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference Finalist) The New Normal, The Cowboy Is Dying and The B Factor. And the short story Peaches With King.

She is a member of the Actors Studio Playwright/Directors Unit, is a Civilians R&D Group and terraNova Collective Groundbreakers Playwright group alum and is the inaugural recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. Her work has been either produced, developed or read by The Labyrinth Theater Company, New York Theater Workshop, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Portland Stage Company, Pure Theatre Company, [the claque], Naked Angels, Classical Theater of Harlem, Slant Theater Project, terraNova Collective, TOSOS, and Coyote REP. Proud member of The Actors Center Workshop Company, SAG-AFTRA, AEA and The Dramatist Guild of America. www.donnettagrays.com