
Historian, Theatre Artist, Poet
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FINALLY QUIET: Four Plays from Bucharest to Washington DC
FINALLY QUIET Four Plays from Bucharest to Washington, DC by Cristina A. Bejan. This volume collects four spirited, imaginative and provocative plays from Romanian-American dramatist Cristina A. Bejan. The plays are: TO THOSE WHO HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING, DISTRICTLAND, FINALLY QUIET IN MY MIND and LIFE ACCORDING TO SWAMI SHIVA. From a dystopian investigation of the impact of totalitarianism, an absurd satire about American ambition, a cry for mental health awareness, and a timely critique of Putin's Russia, Bejan's plays span the world and ultimately capture the universal beating of the human heart. Published March 19, 2023, No Passport Press. Book cover art by E. Christopher Clark.
"Bejan's distinctive voice flows strongly through this anthology of plays bringing brutal honesty to worlds with characters who are vulnerable, cruel, ambitious, and fully human ... In the world of theatre where the woman's voice is often missing, Bejan lifting hers is a gift."
- Susan Lyles, Founder and Producing Artistic Director, And Toto too Theatre Company
"Bejan's plays invite us to listen closely, then ask us to reflect on the freedoms we so often take for granted. From beyond the universe to the neighborhoods of Washington DC, she calls attention to the absurd nature of our artificial social structures and the rarity of true connections with other people."
- Heather Beasley, Associate Artistic Director, Butterfly Effect Theatre of Colorado (formerly Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company)
"Bejan's elegant plays circle around the difficult quest for belonging that is at one and the same time tied to a specific time and place and timeless and universal."
- Blair Ruble, Distinguished Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center, and author of "Washington's U Street: A Biography"

CRISTINA A. BEJAN is an award-winning Romanian-American historian, theatre artist and spoken word poet living and creating in Denver, Colorado. She grew up in Durham, North Carolina, and received her BA in Philosophy (Honors) from Northwestern University, where she also studied theatre. An Oxford DPhil and a recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship and a Fulbright, she has held fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Georgetown University, and the Woodrow Wilson Center, and has taught history at four universities (including Duke) and Wake Technical Community College. She is currently a professor of history and theatre at Metropolitan State University of Denver where she was selected as a Finalist for the 2021 Faculty Senate Teaching Award. A playwright, Bejan has written nineteen plays, many of which have been produced in the United States, Romania, the United Kingdom and Vanuatu. She writes creatively in five languages and has been published internationally in every genre she writes in: academic, theatrical, and poetry. She is founding executive director of the arts and culture platform Bucharest Inside the Beltway (BiB). Under her stage name “Lady Godiva,” she performs her poetry across the United States and Romania. She has written the history book Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania: The Criterion Association (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), poetry collection Green Horses on the Walls (Finishing Line Press, 2020), play anthology FINALLY QUIET: Four Plays from Bucharest to Washington DC (No Passport Press, 2023), her play about post-Holocaust Buchenwald (Next Stage Press, 2023) and is also a contributing author (64 articles and coauthor of the African introduction) for The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos Vol. 3 (University of Indiana, 2018). Bejan's history and poetry books have been released in Romanian translation with Editura Litera and Editura Tracus Arte. Please check out Books More Info for details on all her books with information about how to order directly from Bejan. She has appeared on C-SPAN and three different Romanian national/international news channels, as well as Romanian local, national, and international radio. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, American Prospect, Libertatea, Evenimentul Zilei, and Observator Cultural. Bejan is on the Board of Directors for Immigrant Research Forum (Washington DC) and ARCHER (the American Romanian Coalition for Human and Equal Rights, Chicago, for which she serves as Vice President), and the Advisory Board of Alianța (Washington DC). She is an advocate for NAMI and RAINN and volunteers for Colorado's Romanian philanthropy organization RAFA (the Romanian-American Freedom Alliance). She is a proud member of the Colorado Authors League, the Poetry Society of Colorado, the International Center for Women Playwrights, the Dramatists Guild of America and the BETC Writers Group. In 2022 her plays appeared in the Colorado Women's Theatre Festival and the Peace for Ukraine Festival at Baron's Court Theatre, London, UK. Please visit Bejan's Photo Gallery, Videos, and Podcast & Radio for more about her creative life.
Press & Contact
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Recent interviews with Cristina A. Bejan:
LIBERTATEA, Romanian National Newspaper Interview (Parts 1 & 2) by Vasile Ernu, July 24 & 28, 2023.
"Cristina A. Bejan: În 1989, când am putut veni în România, a început misiunea mea de mă cunoaşte. Într-un fel, toate scrierile mele personale se întorc la acest punct," IQads, Interview by Alexandra Badicioiu Matei, April 27, 2023.
"Jurnal Cultural," TVR Cultural, Live TV appearance, March 31, 2023.
"A doua Românie," TVR International, TV appearance hosted by Corina Dobre, broadcast March 30, 2023.
"FOTO: Seară specială găzduită de Primăria Sibiu. Poeta Cristina Bejan și-a lansat cartea „Cai verzi pe pereți” March 25, 2023.
"Ukraine+ Freedom Arts Showcase Debuts in Denver," Denver Westword, December 13, 2022.
"Trauma, Affect, Memory and 21st Century Poetry," (Interview by Arleen Ionescu), Word and Text, Vol. 12, 2022.
"Cristina A. Bejan: „Sunt o activistă și o războinică a justiției sociale,” (Interview by Daciana Branea) Orizonturi Culturale Italo-Române, May 5, 2022.
"Visibility and Justice: Cristina A. Bejan Interviewed by Adela Sinclair," BOMB Magazine, April 21, 2022.
"Local efforts for Ukraine," Met Media, Metropolitan State University of Denver, April 12, 2022
"Following Your Intellectual and Creative Passions with Cristina A. Bejan '04," Northwestern Intersections Podcast Ep. 111
"University experts weigh in on Ukraine," Met Media, The Student Voice of MSU Denver, March 23, 2022
"Russian Invasion Tests the International World Order," RED official newsroom, Metropolitan State University of Denver
"An award-winning poet's Roadrunner journey" - Early Bird newsletter, Metropolitan State University of Denver
"Cristina Bejan Named an Indie Finalist for Green Horses on the Walls"- Interview for Denver Westword, June, 25, 2021
Interview by Maria-Cristina Necula, Woman Around Town, May 17, 2021
Recent book reviews - all book reviews available on Academia.edu
Book Review of "Cai verzi pe pereți" by Ioana Cosma in Cafeneaua Literară (in Romanian)
Book Review of "Intelectualii si fascismul în România interbelică: Asociația Criterion" by Emanuel Grec (in Romanian)
Book Review of "Intelectualii și fascismul în România interbelică: Asociația Criterion" by Bedros Horasangian (in Romanian)
Book Review of "Cai verzi pe pereți" in Observator Cultural by Octavian Soviany (in Romanian)
Book Review of "Green Horses on the Walls" in WordCityLit by Clara Burghelea
Book Review of "Green Horses on the Walls" by Ileana D. Weissz
Book Review of "Green Horses on the Walls" in Observator Cultural by Letitia Guran (in Romanian)
Book Review of "Green Horses on the Walls" in Cloud Lake Literary journal by Irina Moga
Book Review of "Green Horses on the Walls" in KIRKUS Reviews
Book Review of "Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania" in Hungarian Historical Review by Valentin Săndulescu
Book Review of "Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania" in Slavic Review by Radu Harald Dinu
Recent articles, poems & plays by Cristina A. Bejan:
"Mein Traum / My Dream," (poem), South Broadway Press, January 9, 2023.
"I've learned/Am învățat," by Octavian Paler (translated by Cristina A. Bejan), Copihue Poetry, inaugural issue, 2022.
"And if/Şi dacă," by Mihai Eminescu (translated by Cristina A. Bejan), South Broadway Press, December 28, 2022.
"Memories of Terror: Essays on Recent Histories (Holocaust)," ed. Mihaela Gligor, book review by Cristina A. Bejan
"Stop it! Don't be a bully in the cyberworld or IRL," ARCHER Coalition Blog, October 23, 2022
"Shattered" (poem), Observator Cultural, Nr. 1126
"My 'America'" (poem), Red Fern Review, Issue 4, Summer 2022.
Three poems, Polyglot Magazine, Portals Issue, Spring 2022.
"Disability as Invisible Illness - The Last Frontier," ARCHER Coalition Blog, May 11, 2021
"I'm from a Tricky Diaspora" 2 poems on migrant identity by Cristina A. Bejan, The Calvert Journal, September 10, 2021.
"J'y suis, j'y reste / Here I am, here I stay," play published in anthology Voices on the Move, edited by Domnica Radulescu & Roxana Cazan, Solis Press, 2020.
"Poeme: Invitatul special - Cai verzi pe pereți & București," OPT Motive (Bucharest), nr. 57, March 29, 2021.
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