OTOJA ABIT (Marsha P. Johnson), the only son of determined Nigerian parents, was born in Brooklyn in 1985 and grew up in Queens, New York.
A celebrated athlete and honored scholar he attended Archbishop Molloy High School and went on to a year of post-graduate work at The Gunnery in Connecticut. Abit completed his education at St. John’s University, where he played division one basketball and earned degrees in Communications and Theater Studies as well as a minor in Business.
The “smell of grease paint and roar of the crowd” got hold of Abit during his first ever production, William Inge’s Picnic. Consequently, Abit committed to a pursuit of his true passions: acting, writing and directing.
After interning at The LAByrinth Theater Company, his first big project saw him working as the assistant director on Broadway’s 2011 revival of That Championship Season, directed by Gregory Mosher and starring Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric and Chris Noth.
Abit then went on to book roles in both television and film, including a role playing opposite Al Pacino in The Humbling, directed by Barry Levinson, on NBC’s The Blacklist, and as Paris in Aleta Chappelle’s Romeo & Juliet in Harlem.