Aziza Barnes, Poet and Playwright of BLKS, Dies at 32

Playwright and poet Aziza Barnes has died at the age of 32. According to published reports, Barnes, known affectionately as “Z,” took their own life on Sunday, December 15.

Barnes’s professional playwriting debut was the comedy BLKS, which premiered in 2017 at the Steppenwolf theatre Company in Chicago and had an off-Broadway run at MCC Theater in 2019. “Barnes’s lack of fear as a writer is what makes BLKS a particularly joyous experience,” our critic said of the New York mounting. Barnes received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for the comedy.

A graduate of New York University, Barnes received the 2015 Parnet River Prize for their first full-length poetry collection, titled i be but i ain’t. Their first chapbook, me Aunt Jemima & the nailgun, was the inaugural winner of the Exploding Pinecone Prize from Button Poetry. Barnes also wrote the play Pues Nada and the poetry collection The Blind Pig, among other works.

On television, Barnes had written for Snowfall, Teenage Bounty Hunters, and Rap Sh!t, as well as HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones universe series, A Knight of Seven Kingdoms.

Earlier this year, Barnes’s latest play, FKA I Am a Bad BLK Person, was given a reading as part of Center Theatre Group’s Not a Moment, But a Movement festival. For their bio, the artist provided the following: “Z & Co” f/aka AzizA Barnes is alive on purpose in this earth drag. They did not provide a biography because they find them distinctly morbid. If someone wants to know Z & Co” f/aka AzizA Barnes’ credits, they can Google their given name: Aziza Barnes. In this play of their’s, Z & Co” f/aka AzizA Barnes, will be making their acting debut.”