Davon Williams
M.A. Arts Politics Class of 2027
UArts B.F.A., David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University
DAVON WILLIAMS (2027) is a two-time Anthem Award-winning actor, writer, producer, educator, and cultural strategist building a career where artistry, advocacy, and institutional change meet. He serves as Assistant Director of WANTED on Broadway, Artistic Operations Associate at Baltimore Center Stage, Adjunct Professor at The New School’s School of Drama, and Executive Board Member of “Yes, And…” Laughter Lab.
Williams is a Teaching Artist for the Miranda Family Fellowship, former NYCLU Artist Ambassador, TED Talk alum, Uptown Collective Renaissance Residency playwriting recipient, Next Wave “Black Excellence” Awardee, WRTI “Artist to Watch,” and Philadelphia Urban Theatre Festival Best Play winner. He authored the Black Theatre Matters Bill, landmark legislation passed at Actors’ Equity Association’s first National Convention, after helping organize the March on Broadway. As Yale Producing Fellow at Baltimore Center Stage, he helped produce its 2025/26 season and projects, earning an appointment before graduation.
His career includes producing Ars Nova Entertainment, leading the Dwight/Edgewood Project, representing performers as Actors’ Equity’s Eastern Principal Delegate, serving as theater director for Philadelphia School District’s Regional Talent Centers, and championing Black artists as Communications Director of Black Theatre Coalition.
His career includes producing Ars Nova Entertainment, leading the Dwight/Edgewood Project, representing performers as Actors’ Equity’s Eastern Principal Delegate, serving as theater director for Philadelphia School District’s Regional Talent Centers, and championing Black artists as Communications Director of Black Theatre Coalition.
What drew you to the M.A. in Arts Politics?
I was drawn to the M.A. in Arts Politics because I had reached a point where making excellent art was no longer enough. Through my work as an actor, producer, educator, labor leader, and advocate, I had witnessed how budgets, institutional structures, cultural politics, and access determine whose stories reach the stage, who receives the resources to tell them, and whether the people creating them can build sustainable lives. I wanted a program that would allow me to study those forces without separating my scholarship from my artistic practice.
Arts Politics offered the rare intersection I needed: critical theory, creative experimentation, individualized research, and direct engagement with the institutions shaping our culture. It provided an academic home for "Consulting for Theaters", my evolving investigation into how theaters translate their stated values into operations, distribute capital and authority, manage risk, and build equitable creative capacity.
Choosing this program also represented a deliberate investment in the kind of leader I intend to become. I did not want an education that taught me only how to succeed within existing theatrical systems. I wanted the language, methodology, and intellectual rigor to question those systems, expose the politics embedded within them, and imagine better ones. The M.A. in Arts Politics allows me to bring every part of my career into one inquiry: how can artists gain the knowledge and power to create culture while also transforming the conditions under which culture is made?