Chris Peña - WRITER
BIO
Christopher Oscar Peña is a writer originally from California, now residing in Harlem and LA. Selected plays: a cautionary tail, maelstrom, icarus burns, alone above a raging sea, TINY PEOPLE (or it gets better), and awe/struck. His work has been developed or seen at the Goodman Theater, Public Theater, Two River Theater, INTAR, Ontological Hysteric Incubator, Playwrights Realm, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Old Vic, Theater For a New City, Orchard Project, Naked Angels, The Flea Theater and New York Theatre Workshop, among many others. He’s the creator and co-star of the webseries 80/20, which was selected for the 2015 Outfest Los Angeles Web Series: In With the New Out, was an Official Selection for the 2013 New Media Film Festival, and won the 2013 Outstanding Achievement in writing from LAWEBFEST. His play, a cautionary tail had its world premiere at the Flea Theater in Tribeca where it sold out every performance in advance and was twice extended. A two time Sundance Institute Theater Fellow (2015 Theater Lab Fellow with awe/struck, 2014 UCross Fellow), he has also held fellowships with the Lark Play Development Center (2014 Playwrights Workshop Fellow, 2012-2013 Van Lier Fellow) was a recipient of the Latino Playwrights Award (Kennedy Center), an NYTW Emerging Artist Fellow, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, and was a part of the US/UK Exchange (Old Vic New Voices). His work is published through NoPassport Press and Smith and Kraus. Currently, he is working on commissions from the Goodman Theater, The Clarence Brown Theatre and Yale Rep. He’s a proud member of New Dramatists, an Artistic Patriot at Merrimack Rep, was named one of “The 1st Annual Future Broadway Power List” by Backstage, and was a writer on the critically acclaimed, Golden Globe nominated, debut season of the CW show, Jane the Virgin. He teaches playwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and is represented by Heroes and Villains and CAA. B.A. UC Santa Barbara – M.F.A. NYU/Tisch