As a playwright, composer, producer, and performer of their works, Charlene is a 2022 MAP Grant Fund awardee, FY2023 New York State Council on the Arts grant awardee, 2023 New Georges Audrey Resident, 2023/2024 Creative Capital WILD FUTURES finalist (Film and Theatre, respectively) 2023 Jonathan Larson Grant finalist, 2023 Van Lier New Voices finalist; 2023 Richard Rodgers awards finalist, and an 2023 O'Neill National Musical Theatre Conference finalist with multidisciplinary works presented at Playbill.com Songwriter Series., Signature Theatre's SigSpace, Weeksville Heritage Center, Manhattan School of Music, Judson Memorial Church, Brick Theatre, Hi-Arts NYC as a Critical Breaks resident, and JACK Arts Radical Acts Festival. 

Charlene is very thankful to be trained in BLACK LISTENING via Obsidian Magazine and Poetry Foundation's inaugural O|Sessions. Charlene is an associated artist with the New Georges Theatre as a member of the JAM, and enjoys a multiyear development commitment with En Garde Arts via dramaturgy and production support. Charlene was mentored by the late and deeply great Georgiana Pickett as part of the MAP Fund SPA program.

Charlene has worked as a dramaturg Nia Calloway's "Home/Body: A Ritual Party" at HERE Arts 2023, for UGBA (Ungrateful Black Artist)’s "Dark Skin Support Group," at the Public Theatre’s Emerging Writer’s Group, for Alexander Perez’s The Bad In Each Other at Playwright’s Horizons, for Matthew Keaton “7 Actors, 1 Room,” and for Camille Thomas’s “At God’s Back” at Playwright’s Horizons. Charlene deeply believes in community facilitation and community organizing, as exemplified as the inaugural host of 651 Arts’ Song Salon, co-produced with the Billie Holiday Theatre. Charlene has raised over $100K in grant writing for the United Order of Tents, the oldest Black woman community service fraternity with ties to the Underground Railroad. 

This spring, Charlene will present BRICKS through a 29-hour reading produced with The Workshop Theatre. On Juneteenth, Charlene will present BRICKS at 54Below, and (surprise exclusively for the MTF audiences) release the BRICKS cast album.

Projects