Valentina Johnson was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where she began her artistry at the age of 5. She is a recent graduate of The University of Alabama’s BFA Musical Theatre program. Throughout her time at the university, she has received many accolades including but certainly not limited to The Tommy walker award. This award acknowledges the tremendous amount of work she has put in for the entire theatre department being its head of diversity equity and inclusion, student ambassador for newly enrolled artists, and the precedent for newly found organizations to create spaces for people like her who felt that they had no voice in such a white dominated space. This drove her to devote her artistry toward doing just that, creating art to drive the authenticity of Blackness onstage. Her very first production, “Cotton Candy,” told the story of two queer Black men falling in love and the extremity of beauty that comes with that. Her continuous use of Afro-surrealism combined with a contemporary Black lens has been a staple in her repertoire and will continue to be a leading device in future productions including “Loud: A Ghetto A*s Rap Musical.”

STRIPPED BARE INCUBATOR PROJECT created from a desire to use our theatre space to make a home for new theatrical works, and a place for emerging artists to flex their wings, Stripped Bare is an incubator to test-drive new ideas. Stripped Bare is about theatre at its core. A Stripped Bare project is not about sets, lights, props, and costumes. It is about actors, words, passion, movement, and ideas.