Maya Washington is an American filmmaker, actress, playwright, poet, writer, visualist, and arts educator. With a bachelor of arts in theatre from the University of Southern California and a master of fine arts in creative writing from Hamline University, Washington has garnered awards from[1]Jerome Foundation,[2] Minnesota State Arts Board,[3] Minnesota Film and Television, and many more. Her scholarship and creative projects approach issues of diversity and inclusion. Her film work has had a global reach, in Toronto, Budapest, Hong Kong, Berlin, and Rome.[4]
She wrote and directed the 2011 short film[5] White Space starring Ryan Lane, a selection of African American Short Films syndicated series, which follows the life of a deaf performance poet, and was featured as an official selection in over two dozen[6] film festivals, winning many awards. She produced and starred in Life Coach Chronicles (2013), an award-winning web series about friends and families, their circumstances, and their situations from writer and director Freda C. Hobbs. She wrote, directed, and starred in the award-winning short film Clear (2018) about an exoneree reconnecting with her daughter after serving 16 years for a crime she did not commit.[citation needed]
In 2018, Washington released her first feature-length documentary,[7]Through the Banks of the Red Cedar, premiering at the Detroit Free Press[8] Freep Film Festival. The film follows the 50-year legacy of Washington's father, Minnesota Vikings wide-receiver[9]Gene Washington, on his journey from the segregated south to Michigan State University, where he and his teammates led by head coach Duffy Daugherty , played on the first fully racially integrated college football teams, the 1965 and 1966 Spartans football teams.[citation needed]
Her play Colorful Women of Invention was commissioned by Youth Performance Company as a touring production in 2003.[21] Her full-length play, South of Adams, received a[22] staged reading at Congo Square Theatre in Chicago as part of the August Wilson Playwriting Initiative in 2005.