Camille Simone Thomas
Image Credit: YELLOW BELLY PHOTO
Camille Simone Thomas is a fifth-generation African-American Detroiter through her father’s side, and a first-generation Jamaican through her mother's. It’s important for her to name this because her work most often interrogates cultural legacies, familial healing, spirituality, and ancestral wisdom, and the general kicking and screaming of how Black folks get free despite the oppressive forces of colonialism, Capitalism, and white supremacy. She’s a multi-hyphenate playwright-producer-performer-educator-facilitator.
Her plays have been workshopped and performed Off-Broadway at The Connelly Theater, MCC Theater, Playwrights Horizons, as well as JACK, Sanguine Theatre Company, Blackboard Playwriting series, Lime Arts Theatre Company, The American Slavery Project, The Obie Award-winning Harlem9 and Detroit Public Theatre Company, Dixon Place, The WorkShop Theater, Barter Theatre Company, The National Women's Theatre Festival, The Brick, and more! She was a 2023 Broadway Advocacy Coalition Artivism Fellow, a 2023 New Harmony Project finalist, a 2023 Catskills Creative Residency Finalist, and A 2024 Finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwright Conference for her play At God’s Back.
She was in the 2024/2025 Civilians R&D Group, was a 2024/25 Artistic Research Fellow at The Folger in DC, and was the 2024/25 JACKLabs Artist with her play Sweet Blood. A 2026 Princess Grace Awards Playwriting Fellowship Finalist (Sweet Blood), 2026 Eugene O’Neill Semi-finalist (Mud; or when things get messy and how we live with it), and a 2026 Hedgebrook Writers Retreat recipient. Her work has also been featured in the Caribbean Art and Dialogue book Forgotten Lands Volume 07: Poetics of Architecture.
About Bad American
Bad American is a solo show and interactive retrospective tracing an artist’s journey from “only a few bad police officers” towards "I think we should abolish the police" and the art she created along the way.
During Camille’s SKY LAB Residency, she will interview people who consider themselves abolitionists—meaning they believe police and prisons should be abolished—and weave audio snippets from those conversations throughout the existing text of Bad American. These interviews will expand the work’s exploration of the personal and collective journeys that lead people toward abolition.
Bad American is a solo show and interactive retrospective that follows Camille’s journey from “there are Bad American also examines the modalities of art she has created or, including a children’s book in, interning with Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stargate program in, a 10-minute solo show developed in response to r the murder of Breonna Taylor, a pandemic-era international virtual production with New Ohio Theatre in 2020, her fellowship with Broadway Advocacy Coalition, and the curriculum development and teaching with Step Beyond Women and Girls.
The creative thesis of the project is “What makes people shift towards abolition?” Throughout the performance, the audience will be invited to take one step forward towards abolition.
camillesthomas.com | Camille4reel