(Director, playgroundzero) Website: www.saviana.com
Saviana Stanescuis a Romanian-born award-winning playwright. Her work has been widely presented internationally and in the US. Recent productions include “For a Barbarian Woman” (a co-production Fordham/EST directed by Niegel Smith), “Aliens with extraordinary skills” at Women’s Project (published by Samuel French), “Bechnya” at Hudson Theatre in LA, “Waxing West” (2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-length Script) at La MaMa Theatre, “Suspendida” and “Vicious Dogs on Premises” (with Witness Relocation) at Ontological Theatre, “Polanski Polanski” and “Aurolac Blues” at HERE Arts Center, “The E-Dating Project” at Strasberg Institute for Theatre&Film, and the site-specific “I want what you have” at the World Financial Center
“Aliens with extraordinary skills” (Inmigrantes con Habilidades Extraordinarias) and “Final Countdown” (Cuenta Regresiva) ran for 8 months in Mexico City at Teatro La Capilla and Teatro El Milagro. “Bucharest Underground” won the 2007 Marulic Prize for Best European Radio-Drama. In Stockholm, Sweden, Saviana’s play “White Embers” produced by Dramalabbet made it in the TOP 3 of Best Plays in 2008, and in NYC is published by Samuel French as one of their 2010 OOB festival winners.
Ms Stanescu has published books of poetry and drama including “The New York Plays”, “Aliens With Extraordinary Skills”, “Waxing West”, “Google me!”, “Black Milk”, and “The Inflatable Apocalypse” (Best Play of the Year UNITER Award in 2000).
She co-edited the anthology of plays “Global Foreigners” (with NYU professor Carol Martin) and “roMANIA after 2000” (with CUNY professor Daniel Gerould).
Her plays have received readings and workshops at The Lark, Long Wharf Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage&Film, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Playwrights’ Foundation, Traveling Jewish Theatre, Immigrants Theatre Project, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Origin Theatre Company, PS122, HERE, etc.
Saviana is a member of EST (Ensemble Studio Theatre) and a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop. She was a 2005-2007 TCG fellow with the Lark Play Development Center, where her plays “Waxing West” and “Lenin’s Shoe” had barebones productions. She also was a 2007-2008 NYSCA playwright-in-residence with Women’s Project and writer-in-residence for Richard Schechner’s East Coast Artists.
Saviana holds an MA in Performance Studies (Fulbright fellow) and an MFA in Dramatic Writing (John Golden Award for excellence in playwriting) from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, where she is on faculty in the Drama Department. She also teaches playwriting at Primary Stages – Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA).
Ms Stanescu is the Director of Eastern European Exchange for The Lark Play Development Center, the curator of playgroundzero for undergroundzero festival, and the founder/president of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York.
undergroundzero 