A 2021 Creative Capital Awardee, Derek is currently developing the NightQueen Performance Suite as a trilogy of live theatrical works spanning theater, music, opera, spoken word and new media. The project has been supported by a 2022 Performance Commission from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, as well as additional residency and developmental support from Prop Thtr and Primary Stages.

Derek is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and former resident playwright at the National Black Theatre (Harlem, NY). He has written five musicals for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, as well as various theater projects with JACK, Hi-ARTS, Otherworld Theatre Company, and The Drama League, to name a few. Other works include Bring the Beat Back - a queer, black, afro-futuristic, music-theatre passion project, which was a 2020 O'Neill semi-finalist, and a featured presentation in the 2019 Polyphone Music Festival. Derek is a founding playwright with The Fire This Time Festival, and an inaugural playwright in the 48 Hours in Harlem Festival – two Obie Award-winning theater platforms.

Beyond theater, Derek received a Guy Hanks & Marvin Miller Screenwriting Fellowship at USC, launching a slate of TV and digital projects. HIVE, a futurist anthology series he co-created with Stephanie Jeter and Tim Maupin, was a featured selection in SeriesFest Seven and Minnesota Webfest, a semi-finalist for the 2021 Fade In Sci-Fi Awards, and currently engaging audiences on OTV | Open Television.

His work has been supported by grants and prizes from the Jerome Foundation, Pop Culture Collaborative, the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund, the Puffin Foundation, the Propeller Fund, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the United States Embassy in the United Kingdom, among others.

Originally from Pickerington Ohio, Derek lives in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, and splits his time between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.