Vassie Welbeck-Browne is a writer/performer, poet, costume designer, and teaching artist with extensive experience working in New York’s off Broadway theater community. She is director of her own StoryTree Company, which offers residencies and workshops in drama, and performances from its repertoire. Since returning home to Alabama in 1995 and becoming an AAAE trained teaching artist, her company has become well established in the Southeast and continues its theatrical work, focusing on West Alabama and its Black Belt.
Vassie’s expertise in drama includes technical theater and enables her to draw from and teach a broad range of the elements of theater. Her costume design credits include Black Girl (with Leslie Uggams), Checkmates (with Ruby Dee and Ella Joyce) and Do Lord Remember Me (with Barbara Montgomery/TV—“Amen”), which earned her a New York Audelco Award nomination. She is a recipient of a Sandhills’ Writers’ award for poetry (Augusta University, Augusta, GA). StoryTree Company earned a Certificate of Appreciation for its work in partnership with the Governor’s Black Belt Action Commission’s Cultural and Youth Committee.
Vassie Browne is married to long-time NFT stage-manager and playwright Malik.
| Credit Type | Production | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Costume Designer | Black Girl (1995) | 1995-96 Season |
| Costume Designer | Checkmates | 1995-96 Season |
| Costume Designer | Joe Turner’s Come and Gone | 1996-97 Season |
| Costume Designer | Do Lord Remember Me (1997) | 1996-97 Season |
| Costume Designer | The Trial of One Short Sighted Black Woman vs Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae | 1999-00 Season |
| Costume Designer | Real Black Men Don’t Sit Cross Legged on the Floor | 2005-06 Season |