MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Natalie Brown is a storyteller. Through playwriting, composing, directing, producing, and performing, she seeks to amplify voices historically excluded from western narratives and use the arts as a means for social change.

As a composer and musician, Natalie has written two musicals, released two EPs and two singles, and regularly performs and records original music. She is currently developing the musical adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls…,” which was performed at Yale University and in a reading at the New York City Center (2022-present). Her first musical, “Finding Eden” (2019-2021), was developed over Zoom and was selected as a finalist for the Off-Broadway Rave Theater Festival. She was a 2020 finalist for Taylor Louderman’s Write Out Loud Contest, is the founder of the Yale Songwriters’ Collective, and has performed at venues recently including New York’s 54 Below and New Haven’s Koffee.

Committed to telling stories in all mediums, Natalie has written multiple short plays, from “Slavery Play” (written, directed, and performed in her first grade classroom) to “In The Back of the Bus” (developed at Columbia University and St. John’s School). While at Yale, she studied playwriting under Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and musical theater composition under mentor Jeanine Tesori.

Natalie’s work is grounded in cultivating an understanding of where we are, where we’ve come from, and where we are going; thus, academic rigor and research are essential parts of her process. Natalie is currently pursuing her BA in African-American Studies and Music at Yale University (‘25). At Yale, she is a Mellon Mays/Edward A. Bouchet Fellow, for which she is researching the history and impact of the Black American female musical tradition under the advisory of Professor Daphne Brooks. Natalie is also a 2023-24 Gilder Lehrman College Fellow and most recently studied Black British Theatre at the British American Drama Academy under playwright Oladipo Agboluaje (2023).

Born in New Jersey and raised in Houston, TX by her Liberian and Slovak parents, she now splits her time between New Haven, CT and Boston, MA.