Italic textRobert O'Hara is an African American playwright and director. He has written numerous plays, including Insurrection: Holding History and Bootycandy. ^[1] Insurrection is a time traveling play exploring racial and sexual identity. ^[2] Bootycandy is a series of comedic scenes primarily following the character of Sutter, a gay African American man growing from adolescence to manhood. ^[3] It won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Drama. ^{[4] [5]}

O'Hara was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Growing up, he lived with his mother, who had him when she was seventeen, and his step-father, who moved in when O'Hara was twelve. In the third grade, he began attending Catholic school, where he found himself one of the few African-American students there. He later attended Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1992. Initially he came to the school major in Political science and become a lawyer. However, he quickly realized he was much more interested in theatre, and changed his major to Drama. ^[6] At Tufts he started the Tufts Black Theatre Company, for which he directed and wrote work. ^[7] After graduating from Tufts, he then went on to pursue a Master's degree in Directing at Columbia University, which he completed in 1996. ^[8]

In the mid-nineties, O'Hara wrote the script to a Richard Pryor biopic called Live that was to be directed by Martin Scorsese. However, the project remained trapped in development and has yet to be made.

O'Hara also wrote the script to Micheaux, a biopic following the life of African-American filmaker Oscar Micheaux that was to be directed by Spike Lee.