Tanya recurs in the role of "Deputy Kenya Jones" on the HBO series True Blood; she will next appear in Why Stop Now, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Academy-Award winner Melissa Leo.
Prior to True Blood, Tanya gained momentum on the small screen by commanding attention with her chameleon-like ability to "absorb" roles. After a summer participating in the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival, Tanya quickly became familiar face to weekly television audiences on various critically acclaimed television shows.
But writing was Tanya Wright's first passion-an English major Vassar College, Tanya took a post-college position at The New York Times Magazine. Tanya just completed her directorial debut from her screenplay, Butterfly Rising.
Butterfly Rising is the only transmedia project on the independent film festival circuit written, directed, produced and starring and African-American woman.
The music score for Butterfly Rising was recently named a finalist in the 2011 Jerry Goldsmith Music Film Festival Awards. Butterfly Rising is also a finalist for the HBO Best Feature Film award at the Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival.
Wright's "A Turn to Grace," a script set against the Harlem Renaissance, was a semi-finalist in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' annual Nicholl's Screenwriting Competition. Likewise, the Mark Taper Forum's Blacksmyth's Playwriting Program accepted and performed her "Prelude to a Revolution." Tanya recently wrote and produced a Shakespearean-themed AIDS Public Service using African -American film and television talent and wrote/directed a four-part commercial campaign for Genesis Press, the oldest and largest publisher of African-American adult fiction romance. She is the creator of several screenplays, TV shows and plays.
A native of the Bronx, New York, Wright, grew up with her mother who was 15 years of age when she gave birth to the first of four children. While her mother earned graduate degrees and became a healthcare professional, she and her younger sister received scholarships to the George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania-- a Quaker boarding school.
Wright is diligent about maintaining both physical and spiritual balance in her life. She includes in her weekly routine, time for exercise, dance and yoga, social get-togethers, and lending support to mentoring projects for young girls and the Mkapa Foundation-- an organization founded by the former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa-- that serves the health needs of rural Tanzanians. She also enjoys playing fetch with her 8 year old Black Lab, Macarena. She speaks at colleges, universities and corporations on topics ranging from artists and entrepreneurship, New Media and her experiences in Hollywood as an actor/writer/director.
