FEATURED ALUMNI OF THE MONTH

Crystal Boyd

Hometown – Silver Spring, MD
Undergrad – New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, BFA, Musical Theater
Current Occupation – Multi-hyphenate Actress
Title – TV Creator, The Downtown Girls & CEO of How to Pitch TV

Greatest Impact

The power of self-determination and using your voice to create your own narratives is Crystal’s personal mission as an artist, creator, and coach. Audre Lorde quotes, “If I didn’t define myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” As a young woman growing up in DC with a dysfunctional home-life, Crystal looked to seek out spaces that encouraged her to nurture her own artistry. She was in a DC teen-arts group, City at Peace, that transformed her life by giving her agency over her adversity and life stories. “Tell Your Story” has been a defining artistic philosophy for Crystal ever since, and her greatest impact is teaching at home in DC as well as around the world in Cape Town, Barcelona, Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles, how young adults and creatives can write their own stories. She used art therapy as Arts Program Manager of the International Rescue Committee, and was selected for the Alexander Von Humboldt Fellowship in Berlin, Germany, where she met with Angela Merkel and resided as an expert in storytelling as a means to engage refugee youth with literacy.

Bio

Crystal Boyd is a TV creator and multi-hyphenate actress and writer that has sold four pilots to Warner Brothers and SONY, as part of the woman-comedy trio, The Downtown Girls. Recent projects include BLACK GIRL MAGIC at NBC, with Sony Pictures Television and Gabrielle Union, as well as DOWNTOWN GIRLS at TBS, alongside Elizabeth Banks. The Downtown Girls are currently working with Warner Bros. Animation on developing an animated show about service animals in Los Angeles, through the lens of two dogs and a cat. 

Crystal is a proud native of DC and Maryland, her mother is a DC pre-school arts teacher and her father taught at Banneker High School in the Howard-    Shaw area for 30 years. Although the DMV has her heart, Crystal left to attend New York University for college, as a musical theater B.F.A. at Tisch School of the Arts. It was there that she performed in arenas such as Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden for crowds of 40,000 in the musical, The Reality Show. Crystal studied under theater legend and Tony winner Liz Swados and learned how to create, devise, and perform her own material. She formed a woman comedy-trio, The Downtown Girls, with her college best friends Chandra Russell and Emebeit Beyene, and they’ve been developing television together for 10+ years. Over the span of a decade, the women have written television, pitched and sold four pilots to TV studios, and Crystal has been featured as an actress in SOUTH SIDE on HBO Max and in sketches on Jimmy Fallon.

Crystal is the CEO of How to Pitch TV, a digital Masterclass for people looking to create and sell television. This idea came from the realization that there’s a lack of accessibility and easy information about what is really required in the TV pitching game. How to Pitch TV offers a hands-on Mastermind Membership for the business of television, a Video Storyteller’s Bundle, College Workshops, and Individualized Coaching. Visit her at https://howtopitchtv.com for more information.