Andrea Ambam is an award-winning storyteller, truthteller, and worldbender whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged writer, performance artist, and curator, Andrea seeks to reflect the times and generate new timelines via critical commentary, unruly imagination, and multi-modal creations that interrogate how we get free.
photo credit: Lexi Webster Photography
Andrea Ambam is a storyteller, truthteller, and worldbender whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged writer, performance artist, and curator, Andrea seeks to reflect the times and generate new timelines via critical commentary, unruly imagination, and multi-modal creations that interrogate how we get free.
Currently, she is developing new theatrical work as a Hi-Arts CRITICAL BREAKS Resident Artist and serving as the Director of Programming at Level Forward - a public-benefit entertainment studio – where she produces and hosts the Anthem Award-winning audience engagement platform More To Talk About. She has developed her multi-hyphenated artistic practice through fellowships and residencies with PEN America, New York Theatre Workshop, Anna Deavere Smith, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, The Playwrights Realm, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Signature Theatre, and EmergeNYC; and collaboration with JACK, Classical Theatre of Harlem, NYU Verbatim Performance Lab, Girls Write Now, NYU Prison Education Program, Harlem9, and others. Andrea has been pulsating at the intersection of art, current events, and social impact for over a decade, beginning as a competitive public speaker where she was awarded 10 national championships including "Top Speaker in the Nation'' three times, and went on to debate conservative pundits on live TV.
Her plays include: Twelve Angry Black Women (Fault Line Theatre’s Irons in The Fire Finalist), Fragile State (Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist, Rattlestick Van Lier Fellowship Semifinalist), R(estoration) I(n) P(rogress) (NYU Educational Theatre/Provincetown Playhouse 2023, ANPF Semifinalist 2021), Rehearsing Justice: A One-Woman Show (Presentations with BAX 2022 & BAC 2021), and Angelina Weld Grimke (Classical Theatre of Harlem/Playbill, Broadway Podcast Network).
Andrea lives in Brooklyn where the rent is too damn high and holds a Master’s degree in Art & Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Odd Truths / Fun Facts
Andrea grew up in a small Missouri town named Peculiar, where the motto is “where the ‘odds’ are with you.”
After becoming the first in her high school to win a national speech and debate championship, July 28th, 2014, was proclaimed “Andrea Ambam Day” by the local mayor. Mom was proud.
Andrea is an abolitionist trying to unlearn listening to true crime before bed.
