Andrea Ambam is an award-winning storyteller and truthteller whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged writer, performance artist, and producer, Andrea seeks to reflect the times and generate new timelines via her critical commentary, unruly imagination, and multi-modal creations that interrogate how we get free.

Andrea smiling, wearing a green shirt and jeans, with long braided hair and gold accessories, against a blue background.

photo credit: Lexi Webster Photography

Andrea Ambam is an award-winning storyteller and truthteller whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged writer, performance artist, director, and creative producer, Andrea seeks to reflect the times and generate new timelines via her critical commentary, unruly imagination, and multi-modal creations that interrogate how we get free.

She has developed her multi-hyphenated artistic practice through fellowships and residencies with New York Theatre Workshop, PEN America, Hi-ARTS, Anna Deavere Smith, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, The Playwrights Realm, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Signature Theatre, and EmergeNYC; collaboration with Rattlestick Theater, JACK, Working Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem, NYU Verbatim Performance Lab, Girls Write Now, Harlem9, and others. Andrea has been pulsating at the intersection of storytelling and social change 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. Currently, she is the Director of Programming at Level Forward - a public-benefit entertainment studio – where she curates, produces, and hosts the Anthem Award-winning audience engagement platform More To Talk About, previously seen at Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, and monthly in NYC at Soho House.

Her plays include: Twelve Angry Black Women (Perelman Performing Arts Center Democracy Cycle Commission), Date of Release (Working Theater and Broadway Advocacy Coalition’s Stage Left Festival), Fragile State (Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist, Theatre503 International Playwriting Award Longlist), R(estoration) I(n) P(rogress) (NYU Educational Theatre/Provincetown Playhouse, 2023), Rehearsing Justice: A One-Woman Show (Brooklyn Arts Exchange), and Angelina Weld Grimke (Classical Theatre of Harlem/Playbill, Broadway Podcast Network). She’s been a finalist or semi-finalist for the Rattlestick Van Lier Fellowship, Fault Line Theatre’s Irons in The Fire, NewVictory Labworks, and Ars Nova Play Group.

Andrea lives in Brooklyn where the rent is too damn high and holds a Masters degree in Art & Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

CV

Odd Truths / Fun Facts

Welcome to the City of Peculiar, Missouri sign on a stone wall.

  • 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.

Person speaking on stage at an event titled 'A Night of Impact: Where Story Meets Purpose,' with audience watching.
Group of six people posing at a Sundance Institute event with a purple background featuring logos for All Above All and The Purple Parlor Fund.
Panel discussion event featuring five speakers with a large screen backdrop displaying their names and roles, moderated by Andrea Ambam. Event partners include Sundance Institute, Level Forward, and others.
Andera Ambam holds a purple frame with the text 'I Tell Brave Stories' against a backdrop featuring logos like Level Forward, Pregnancy Justice, and Sundance Institute.
Three people on stage with microphones, Andrea Ambam in an orange shirt raising her hand, two men in suits, "Impact Report 2024" text overlay.
Andrea Ambam speaking on stage wearing glasses and colorful attire, with long braided hair, standing in front of a decorated backdrop, next to a music stand.
Andrea Ambam smiling with hands raised, wearing green t-shirt and jeans, standing in front of a decorated reflective wall with flowers and pictures.
Two people stand on stage with microphones, one wearing a glittery top hat and leather jacket, the other with glasses and a headscarf, speaking to an audience in front of a textured wall with pink lighting.
Andrea Ambam standing at a microphone reading from a book titled 'Black Liturgies' in a dimly lit setting, with an audience in the foreground.
Andrea Ambam smiling while holding up a colorful beaded accessory, standing at a microphone stand, wearing a black outfit and sunglasses.
Andrea Ambam is outside of a building with a sign reading 'JACK.' The building also has windows labeled 'THEATER,' 'MUSIC,' 'DANCE,' 'JUSTICE,' and 'COMMUNITY.'

  • I'm not trying to get by. I'm trying to get free.

    Mereba

  • As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible.

    Toni Cade Bambara

  • I shall wrassle me up a future or die trying.

    Zora Neale Hurston