Tina Fakhrid-Deen

Tina Fakhrid-Deen (she/her) is an artist whose work honors Black communities not as sites of lack, but as places of imagination, contradiction, cultural wealth, tenderness, humor, and radical possibility. She believes that being human is a beautiful, messy practice. As a liberatory guide, she understands the complexities of people, communities, histories, and institutions, and is intentional about holding space for witnessing, reckoning, reparation, freedom, and transformation. 

Tina cultivates spaces where we practice liberation together. Across theater, teaching, writing, and community building, her work explores how we fracture, how we survive, and how we return to ourselves and one another. She invites people to bear witness to difficult truths, to reclaim joy, to tap into our power, and to embrace our shared humanity without surrendering to despair, believing that imagination is one of our greatest tools for creating abolitionist, peace-rooted, and more just futures. An award-winning playwright, author, educator, consultant, and LGBTQ+ family activist, Tina works across artistic, educational, and civic spaces to create experiences that inspire dialogue, critical inquiry, and collective transformation.  

Tina is a Distinguished Professor of English at Oakton College and volunteers in prison education programs and prison ministry. Her work as both artist and educator has been recognized through fellowships and residencies with The Studios of Key West, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Fulbright-Hays Program, MacDowell, Kimbilio For Black Fiction, and Voices of our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA). She is also the recipient of Oakton College’s Ray Hartstein Award for Outstanding Professional Excellence in Teaching and the AAWCC Award of Distinction for her service to both campus and community. 

Her most recent plays, Squat (directed by Lauren Lundy), which premiered at MPAACT in 2026, and Black Bone (directed by Carla Stillwell), which premiered at Definition Theatre in 2025, continue her exploration of identity, belonging, and liberation. Her Jeff Award-winning play Pulled Punches (directed by Lauren Wells-Mann), premiered through MPAACT in 2022 after development with the Women’s Theatre Alliance of Chicago and MacDowell. Her Jeff Award-nominated play Dandelions (directed by Lauren Wells-Mann), premiered in 2023 after being commissioned by Theater on the Lake: In the Works and receiving a developmental production in 2020. Earlier works include Powerless Gods (directed by Veronda Carey) which was a semifinalist for both the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the National Playwrights Conference; Snow Black, commissioned by Rivendell Theatre Ensemble’s 8:46 Breathing Room Festival, and Sankofa: A Journey into Bronzeville’s Poppin’ Past, which she also directed, is a children’s podcast play commissioned by Chicago Children’s Theatre and the Chicago Park District. 

Community has always been central to Tina’s artistic practice. She founded the Chicago chapter of COLAGE, where she served as volunteer coordinator for seven years, inspiring her first book, Let’s Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents (Seal Press). She later founded The Butterfly Circle and Play.Write.Space, writing communities that cultivate accountability, artistic growth, and belonging for Black women, queer writers, and other creatives. She is also a company member of MPAACT and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, the Playwrights’ Center, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.