Faculty Profile for Sidney Lanier Rushing Jr.

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Syd has penned various stage productions in both Chicago, Texas and Los Angeles. He also wrote and performed his one man show Brother’s Tellin’ which opened for Lily Tomlin’s show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe in Los Angeles. Syd was then selected for the Mark Taper Playwright’s Program. He went on to a string of produced plays including, Akashic Permutations, Unsung Heroes and Flossie. Rushing was honored to be a winner in the Queensbury Theatre New Work Playwright series, a semi-finalist in Cine Story’s TV 2021 contest, a semifinalist in Screen Craft's TV 2022 Pilot Contest and a recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award at the Kennedy Center. His play Fannie was developed by the August Wilson House and Carnegie Mellon University artists. In addition, he has garnered two development grants with the National Black Theatre. He is the inaugural August Wilson Fellow, America's 21st Century Voices, Theatre 4 the People Artist Residency 2022 and a VIP guest alongside Denzel Washington for the 2022 August Wilson House building opening.

With recent additions, Mr. Rushing was a top ten finalist for the Screen Craft TV Pilot contest out of 3000 writers nationally. And for this horror script, he was selected as one of the top 30 writers nationally for the LAMBDA Writer's list 2024. Added to this, he was a winner in the Lift Every Voice grant contest and participated in a development process for his newest play with them in Florida. The development process provided a full staff, director, artistic director and actors. After an intensive interview process, he was then selected for the ATG BIPOC Playlab in New Jersey with seven other playwrights. Then, he was the recipient for another development grant with the prestigious Garden Play Festival. As a result,, he is working with a producer and one of our nation's top dramaturgs in New Jersey. To that end, Syd was a semi finalist for the ​Dramatist ​Guild Fellowship out of ​600 writers

During the summer of 2024, Syd was honored to be selected for the Kennedy Center's Playwright Gathering inaugural development program in Washington, DC. And the North Carolina Playwright's Lab picked the top seven playwrights in the state and Rushing participated in a Play Symposium workshop on his work with celebrated playwrights, Aaron Posner. Theatre 4 the People is also presently in pre production for one of his plays to open in New York 2025.

Over the course of 2024, he has appeared in American Theatre Magazine and in Broadway World twice.

Syd is a graduate of the B.F.A Acting program via the University of Mississippi, a graduate of New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Writer's Screenwriting Boot Camp in Los Angeles, a certified Texas teacher, AVID certified teacher and a graduate of Texas State University with a M.F.A Dramatic Writing degree. Lastly, Syd worked on the crew for Paramount pictures on shows such as Frasier and Moesha.

Lastly, Syd served as dramaturg for Black Latino Playwright Conference 2022 for the play Cup of Life going up for production in Portland, Oregon with Kwik Jones. In 2024, Kwik's newest play was chosen by the Fade to Black playwright festival in Houston. Syd is also a featured actor in the film Horton Foote the Road to Home with Robert Duvall which is heading to streaming 2023. His work with Black Latino Playwright winner, La Darrion resulted in his play being developed at the Eugene O' Neill theatre.

His expertise would be musical theatre, playwriting, screenwriting, TV writing, Native American History, African Diaspora History, dramaturgy and a University research scholar.

Teaching Interests

Pulitzer Prize winning plays
Diverse plays
LBGT cannon
August Wilson cannon
Styles of Theatre, Naturalism, Surrealism, Realism, Absurd
Theatre History
Creating Dynamic Stories
Dialogue
Screenplays across the Century

Research Interests

Howard University selected speaker August Wilson's Traditional/Non Traditional Casting
Native American Spirituality
Yoruba Spirituality
African Diaspora Cause and Effects
US Education Trends
Curriculum k- 12, to College - Best Practices for Learning
Learning Styles
AVID Prep Curriculum