Toni Ann Johnson

[citation needed] From 1989 to 1990, Johnson was a contributing writer (along with Jewel Brimage, Ellen Cleghorne, Cheryl Lane, Leslie Lee and Zelda Patterson) to the play Here in My Father's House,[2] produced Off Broadway by The Negro Ensemble Company at the Lambs Theater and later at Theatre Four.

In June 1994, Johnson was selected as a participant for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab to adapt her stage play Gramercy Park Is Closed to the Public.

[5] The play centers on the life of an upper-middle-class woman of mixed race and her romantic relationship with a white cop in her New York City neighborhood.

Gramercy Park Is Closed to the Public was produced by The New York Stage and Film Company in 1999 as a mainstage production and as part of its summer Powerhouse Theatre at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

[9] The film is loosely based on the life of Henriette Delille, a free woman of color in mid-19th century New Orleans, who founded one of the first orders of nuns of African descent, The Sisters of the Holy Family.

Her view of forgiveness is multilayered, and her characters’ mostly mixed-race status adds an interesting dimension to their experiences.”[24] Johnson won the 1998 Humanitas Prize and the 1998 Christopher Award for her script Ruby Bridges.

Light Skin Gone to Waste was nominated for a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction[34] and shortlisted for the 2024 Saroyan Prize.

She was instrumental in gaining approval for a major tree-planting event in January 2010 that involved Ralphs Grocery and Million Trees LA.