is a playwright whose works have been developed and produced both nationally and internationally with the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Center Theater Group, The Guthrie Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Goodman Theater, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, with Tony Award-winning producer Arielle Tepper Madover off-Broadway at Theater Row, and the Tokyo International Arts Festival, among many others. Her theater for young audiences play Four Little Girls: Birmingham: 1963 was directed by Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad and performed in front of a sold-out audience at the Kennedy Center to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Her theater for young audiences musical Ruby!: The Story of Ruby Bridges was the best-selling show in the history of St. Paul’s SteppingStone Theatre.
Ham is a two-time recipient of a McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting and a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, the Marianne Murphy Women & Philanthropy Award in Playwriting, a MacDowell Colony Artist Residency, and a previous nominee for Center Theater Group’s Richard E. Sherwood Award for Distinguished Emerging Theater Artist. She has received commissions from the Kennedy Center, The Guthrie Theater, and Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, among many others.
Ham is a graduate of the University of Southern California and holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from The UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, where she was a Graduate Opportunity Fellow. She is an Affiliated Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, where she is also a member of its Advisory Council and a member of the Playwrights Union in Los Angeles and The Dramatists Guild of America. She is a member of The Kilroys, who have been advocating for the equal representation of woman, trans, and non-binary writers on American stages. Recently, American Theatre magazine named her one of the top 20 most-produced playwrights of the 2018-19 season. She holds a Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Pillsbury House Theatre and is a writer on the new Amazon horror Anthology series THEM: Covenant.