Sydné is associate professor of playwriting. She also teaches quarter-time in the African American Studies Program. She is the editor of Moon Marked and Touched By Sun: Plays By African American Women (TCG, 1994); and With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (William Morrow, 1998). Recent affiliations include the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Utah and Going to the River, a festival of black women writers at Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York. She was the director of play development at Crossroads Theatre Company from 1985-1997 where she served as production dramaturg for many new plays including works by Rita Dove, August Wilson, Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe, Leslie Lee, Aishah Rahman, Don Evans, Pearl Cleage, Richard Wesley, and Dominic Taylor. Special projects at Crossroads: staff producer of the annual Genesis Festival of New Voices, a celebration of cutting-edge, alternative styles in African American drama; and founder of Sangoma, the Women's Company.

Research awards include scholar-in-residence at the Getty Research Institute and guest dramaturg sponsored by the Pew/TCG National Theatre Artist Residency Program, hosted by Brown University's Rites and Reason Theatre.

She has been a panelist for many playwriting awards including the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, and TCG. She has taught at Dartmouth College, New York University—Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She is a member of the board of directors for Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).

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