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Tara Lake is a Scholar-Artist, Performer and Historian.

Tara Lake is a scholar-artist, soprano, and storyteller. She is Cultural Education Director for The AfroSouthern Education Project, and recently wrapped up a five-year stint on the Africana Studies faculty for Eastern Washington University (Cheney). Her enduring passions include the complexity of African American Cultures of the South - particularly folkways, folktales, spirituality, Christian traditions, and foodways; African American Music of the Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth Century - especially Folk Songs, Congregational/Communal Worship Songs & The Spiritual; and Intersectional Identity Constructs - specifically among Intercultural & Multi-Ethnic Communities and on the margins of Diverse Identities among People of Color. A lover of language, she is on a personal mission to support comprehensive English Language Literacy for every motivated student, regardless of background, identity, age, or socio-economic status.

Tara is currently crafting the fourth in a series of Spirituals concerts – an exploration of the Jesus Christ hero narrative in the African American folk tradition  and recently wrapped up the 2023 tour of her solo play. She is active as a performer, storyteller, soprano soloist, and chorister. 

Ms. Lake is an alumna of the Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and the National Audio Theatre Festival’s Workshop 101. She has also  been awarded grants and fellowships from organizations such as the James and Sylvia Thayer Foundation, the UCLA Institute of American Cultures, the Puffin Foundation, and the Ella Fountain Pratt endowment.  Ms. Lake is an alumna of Florida A&M University (FAMU) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Based in Philadelphia, PA, Tara’s Christmas Spirituals Project had its Philadelphia premiere at historic congregations in the Episcopal District of Pennsylvania in 2022 and was presented in 2023 at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community at Calvary Untied Methodist Church in Philadelphia, PA. 

Tara performed her concert “Hold On: Songs of Justice, Hope and Solace,” at Berea College in partnership with the Peace and Social Justice and Music Departments on April 19, 2018.

Tara premiered her concert, “Miss Wheatley’s Garden & Other Works: A Celebration of African American Women Poets and Composers”, featuring new works and an Ohio premiere, at The Mercantile Library, in Cincinnati, OH on May 24, 2018.

Tara’s award-winning solo show, “I Know It Was the Blood: The Totally True Adventures of a Newfangled Black Woman”, has been performed at numerous curated festivals including Chicago Fringe Festival, Dream Up Festival New York, Keybank Rochester Fringe Festival, Capital Fringe Festival (DC), Charm City Fringe Festival (Baltimore),  Borderlight Fringe (Cleveland), Providence Fringe (RI), Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and London UK’s Camden Fringe Festival. In its 2024 Borderlight Festival run, the show was awarded the Margaret Wong Hope Award, one of the numerous laurels for the production.

In February, 2024, Tara was cast as RUTH in the 2024 production Ruth and The Green Book at the Center for Puppetry Arts, which presented the play in partnership with the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, G.A.

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