• Ph.D. English - Morgan State University
• M.A. English/Creative Writing - University of Central Oklahoma
• B.A. English - North Carolina A&T State University

Dr. Tyrone Stanley is a playwright and composer whose works have been featured in multiple national and international festivals and concerts. Dr. Stanley began his career in academia as an English professor. Dr. Stanley made history at Morgan State University as the first Creative Dissertation in the English department, earning him the Ph.D in English. He received his M.A. in English/Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma, and B.A. in English from North Carolina A&T State University.

After earning his doctorate from Morgan State, he was selected to attend the University of California Los Angeles Writing for Televison Professional writing intensive, where he focused on writing episodic drama and comedy.

An accomplished musician and director, Dr. Stanley is the composer and playwright of Soul On Fire the Musical, which made a Kennedy Center debut in 2014. Soul On Fire the Musical made its Off Broadway debut in New York's June Havoc Theatre, as a main stage feature for the Midtown International Theatre Festival in 2013. His work has also been seen in the National Black Theatre Festival, Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and Soul On Fire will open in 2017 in an Apollo Theatre debut.

Dr. Stanley is a recipient of the Central Oklahoma Playwriting Award (2009) for his 10-minute play, Distant Cousins, which also earned him the Middle-Atlantic Writers Association Award in Creative Writing.  A fluent performer of Italian, French, and German opera, Dr. Stanley made his New York City Opera debut as a lead tenor in Toni Morrison's Margaret Garner, the opera.

He has also been seen as:

• Andre the Viper in Fats Waller Musical Ain’t Misbehavin;
• Sportin’ Life in the Australia/New Zealand tour of George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess;
• a feature role in an open run of NJ Performing Arts production of Your Arms Too Short To Box With God, which starred Tony Award winner Melba Moore and Cissy Houston;
• and a featured role in the regional premiere of Passing Strange (Guthrie, OK).

His directing credits include: 

• Annie;
• Aida;
• Murder Takes the Stage;
• Steel Magnolias;
• Shakespeare in Hollywood;
• Hairspray;
• and Black Nativity. 

He has appeared on CBS’ As the World Turns; ABC’s All My Children; HBO’s Sex & the City; and Whoopi Goldberg’s Whoopi. 

Dr. Stanley was recently commissioned by Long Beach Opera Company to write the libretto to two of their new operatic works for the 2020-21 season and is currently completing a commision for an African influenced adaptation of his hit musical, Soul On Fire. The new adaptation will first have a test market run in the US before touring Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa.