Artist Profile
Actress-playwright Debra Ehrhardt has made her home in the U.S., while maintaining an unquestionable passion for her native land. She has performed her own stories all over the world based on her colorful life in Jamaica. Debra is the recipient of several awards and has garnered rave reviews of her plays over the years. Previous solo productions include Mango Mango, Invisible Chairs, Cock Tales: Shame on Me! and Jamaica Farewell which was produced by Rita Wilson- Hanks and Garry Marshall and has been optioned for film. She received a Proclamation from the City of New York for her “Outstanding Contribution to the Jamaican community” and was named one of Jamaica’s top ten news makers for 2010. In addition, Ehrhardt has performed at the storytelling center in Jonesboro, Tenn., the Taos Storytelling festival in New Mexico, Ojai storytelling Festival in California, and she was the winner in 2017 for the Best Storyteller in Long Beach, Calif. Ehrhardt founded “What’s Your Story Jamaica,” a million-dollar storytelling competition in Kingston a few years ago and returns to Jamaica every year to produce and promote the competition. Debra maintains the fundamental belief that content is king, and to that end she imbues her work with tenderness, subtlety and intensity, striving tirelessly to emphasize what makes art meaningful: honest emotion.