Makeda Declet
MAKEDA DECLET [she/her] is a Guyanese-American playwright, TV writer, and award-nominated actor. She is a current semi-finalist for the 2025 O'Neill Playwrights' Conference. Her play, DARLINGS, was a 2024 Honorable Mention for the Leah Playwriting Prize and she is a 2019 HBO All-Access finalist. Makeda served as a writer in the mini-room for the FX television show, Suckhole. Her stage plays include SERVICE/PLAY (EST/LA, Los Angeles and The Understudy, Chicago); Issa Was Here (Perceptions Theatre, Chicago and Runaways Lab Theater, Chicago); Hammer (The Belfry Stage, Los Angeles); Camp (MeetCute, Los Angeles); and FKA Gold is Deep (Ethel M. Barber Theater, Northwestern University, Chicago). Development programs include EST/LA’s New West Playwrights Under 30 (Los Angeles), Moving Arts’ MadLab development program (Los Angeles), and Mara Brock Akil’s Story 27 Writers’ Colony (Los Angeles). She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, EST/LA and Echo Theater Company. Makeda holds a BFA in Experimental Theater from NYU and an MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University, where she studied under the tutelage of Erin Courtney and Thomas Bradshaw (playwriting), Tracey Scott Wilson and Zayd Dohrn (TV writing), and Felicia D. Henderson (showrunning). Makeda grew up in Brooklyn, NY and now splits her time between Chicago and Los Angeles.
Sleep’her
A depressed woman finds an unlikely ally (and eventual enemy) in the creator of a gig app.
Action Short
“I have been creating films for a few years but shooting in Chicago in the Winter will be a core memory and foundational to my work as a filmmaker.
My crew was almost all women, comprising about 70% of the total crew members. They were incredible in their work and I'm proud that some counted SLEEP'HER as their first professional project in the roles they served on set.
I believe this film is important because of how it tackles grief and loneliness and how they are often pushed aside to serve capitalism. I hope that someone sees this film and not only gets excited by good entertainment, but that they take a moment to consider the folks around them and where they may find some unlikely allies.”