Theatre Artist
Cristina A. Bejan has been a practicing theatre artist for over thirty years and is a proud member of the Colorado Theatre Guild, Dramatist Guild of America, the International Center for Women's Playwrights, and the 2022-2023 BETC Writers Group. A playwright, she has written nineteen plays, many of which have been produced in the United States and internationally. She has published six plays (with No Passport Press, Next Stage Press and Solis Press) and has collaborated professionally with Broadway director Lila Neugebauer, UK actress Rosamund Pike, and Romanian actress Maia Morgenstern. Her hit play "Districtland" was bought for TV development in 2015. Bejan has directed, assistant directed, sound designed, dialect coached, marketed, produced and worked as dramaturg or actor on countless productions. She trained at Northwestern University, Interlochen Center for the Arts and Washington DC's Studio Theatre Conservatory. She has collaborated with the Source Theatre (DC, Mead Theater Lab Program), Mosaic Theater Company (DC), Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (DC), Theatre J (DC), Washington DC Coalition for Theatre and Social Justice, Wilton's Music Hall (London), Teatrul Foarte Mic (Bucharest), Burning Coal Theatre (Raleigh, NC) and Fearless Theatre (Denver, CO), among others. Her work has been featured in the Colorado Women's Theatre Festival, Peace for Ukraine Readings (Baron's Court Theatre, London), Capital Fringe Festival, DC Black Theatre Festival, Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival, NC Women's Theatre Festival, Jersey City New Play Festival, and Rough Draft Playwrights (CO). She is certified in Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and has also served as a Henry Awards Judge with the Colorado Theatre Guild. Interested in artistic collaboration or reading/producing one her scripts? Please contact Bejan.
Cristina A. Bejan pictured directing "Finally Quiet In My Head" in the Russian Lounge at the Kennedy Center for the 2015 Page to Stage Festival.
Scroll down to the end for theater reviews of Bejan's work
Complete List of Bejan's Plays
(Each play title below links directly to the corresponding play description, character breakdown and script on New Play Exchange.)
A protest play by Brunt Poetry (James Brunt) & Lady Godiva (Cristina A. Bejan)
Cast: 2-10 · Genre: biography, comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental, political, satire “The Scholarship” is a new play written and performed by Denver spoken word poets and playwrights Brunt Poetry (James Brunt) and Lady Godiva (Cristina A. Bejan). Conceived as a protest play inspired by Black Lives Matter and the Rhodes Must Fall movements, “The Scholarship” aims to educate about the troubling history of racist and imperialist diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes and the Oxford postgraduate scholarship established in his name and illustrate that what the scholarship has become (despite so many progressive changes and mutations) in no way justifies the Rhodes Trust’s insistence to continue to use the Rhodes name. The play’s final line captures the genuine motive of the playwrights: “Let’s find a name of a Rhodes Scholar whose name we can celebrate, or simply call the most famous scholarship in the world …..The Scholarship.” 2021 virtual production by Theatre29 Denver and Bucharest Inside the Beltway. 2022 rehearsed live reading in "Plays for Ukraine" festival in London produced by Kibo Productions and Baron's Court Theatre.
Cast: 3 · Genre: docudrama/historic, drama, period
Buchenwald explores man's hunger for power and the fight for something greater than the individual. Set in 1946, the show discloses the continued use of Nazi concentration camps as Soviet extermination camps for the Germans. Imprisoned by the Soviets, Nazi SS Colonel Max Richter reaches out to save the future of his young Soviet guard, Sasha Novsky. Produced at the Struble Theatre, Northwestern University 2004. Published in Romanian published in June – July 2008 Issue of Timpul Cultural Magazine, Iași, Romania.
Colombo Calling - a play from Sri Lanka
Cast: 9 · Genre: drama
Having recently received a PhD from Cambridge, Karthi returns to Colombo for the first time in twenty-two years. He comes to settle family affairs as his mother lays on her death-bed in London. His male cousin, Shahan, is a loud, vocal Sri Lankan with a very strong Tamil identity, and Shahan's sister, Thushanti, is Colombo's most famous and desired party girl. Shahan works for an American NGO set up post- Tsunami through which met his New Zealander girlfriend, Molly. Karthi's aunt, Varthini, has difficulty accepting Karthi's family's rejection of their homeland, her own children's erratic behavior and the extreme changes happening in Sri Lanka due to never-ending civil war, natural disaster and international humanitarian intervention. Facing discrimination and racism even as a visitor, Karthi learns what it means to be Tamil in 2006 Sri Lanka. "Colombo Calling" appeared as a live-reading in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008 At Teatrul Foarte Mic And Museo Café, starring Maia Morgenstern as Varthini, and directed by Alex Mihail. Produced as a staged reading in the 2016 Page to Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Produced as a staged reading at Imurj in Raleigh, NC in May 2018 starring Seema Kukreja.
Cast: 6 · Genre: comedy, drama
On Christmas eve, 16 year-old Jonas is called upon by God (in the form of Ozzy Osbourne) to be the next Messiah. Jonas' Israeli-Jewish father, lapsed-Catholic mother and troubled adolescent sister are more than reluctant to believe him. Jonas struggles with self-doubt but ultimately accepts the challenge when visited by Jesus Christ himself who emerges out of a poster in Jonas' room, as Kurt Cobain. Produced at the Moser Theatre, Oxford, UK 2005.
Cast: 6 · Genre: romantic comedy
"Curious or Insecure in Odessa" is a backward love story told backwards. It begins with the final conversation held between Rose, an Ukrainian-American PhD student, and her lover, Stellan, a Swedish ex-pat short story author living in Odessa. This play as an attempt to better understand what makes us take the destructive leap of faith necessary to fall in love. The overarching question 'Curious or Insecure?' is relevant to both Rose and Stellan when considering why the two were drawn to each other, as an unlikely pair of misfits in an East European barren urban landscape. The play does not aim to give an answer, but does suggest that Rose is mainly curious, whilst Stellan is primarily insecure, and that we all are, when it comes to love, a bit of both.
Cast: 10–12 · Genre: comedy, parody/spoof, political, satire
A day in the life of group of young DC go-getter types, living in a shared house in a transition neighborhood. Frank interns on Capitol Hill, Dave is an unemployed Georgetown Law grad, Charity is a former Peace Corps volunteer who works for an indigenous NGO and Maria is a Cuban-American Rhodes scholar at the State Department. Professional and relationship drama ensues including Frank's unrequited love of the lone DC native, A'isha. The script is a glimpse into the various DC worlds the characters interact with: including the IMF, World Bank, McKinsey, spoken word poetry (e.g. Busboys and Poets), an Afghani cabbie's quest for literary fame and an absolutely absurd lobbying group called Saving the Dogs of Bucharest. World premiere took place in July 2014 at the Capital Fringe Theatre Festival in Washington DC, directed by John Dellaporta. The show sold-out its entire extended run. Script optioned by Russell Max Simon for development into a TV series. DISTRICTLAND TV Pilot headlined the DC Independent Film Festival in March 2016. Both the play and the TV show have been featured favorably in the Washington Post.
Cast: 6 · Genre: drama · Keyword: sexism and terrorism
A stark exploration of both sides' of the Atlantic inability to understand one another. A play about the ultimate alienation of the individual, set against the back-drop of a decaying love story in London and a terrorist kidnapping in Paris. Semi-finalist in the Oxford University Dramatic Society New Writing Festival 2005. Produced at the Burton Taylor Theatre, Oxford, UK 2005.
Finally Quiet in My Head
Cast: 6 · Genre: drama
"Finally Quiet in my Head" tells the story of African-American and native Washingtonian Morgan and her unlikely friendship with Gerard, the Senegalese man whose humor and kind spirit might have saved Morgan inside the hospital. It explores the struggles Morgan’s family and friends face when coming to terms with Morgan’s nervous breakdown, and the inability for her loved ones and doctors alike to understand what it means for her. This play examines the intersections between mental illness and race, gender-based violence, and socio-economic status, all within the context of the District of Columbia. Finalist in the Oxford University New Writing Festival 2006. Produced at the Moser Theatre Oxford 2006. Produced in the 2015 DC Black Theatre Festival, sold-out run.
Gateway to Heaven
Cast: 4 · Genre: comedy
Bohemian Karl rubs elbows with Ronald Reagan and Madonna in the waiting room to Heaven, as Joan of Arc presides as the registrar/St. Peter's personal secretary. Produced at the Moser Theatre, Oxford, UK 2005.
The Happiness Business
Cast: 3 · Genre: comedy · Keyword: forgiveness and home.
Radu moves out of his NYC apartment he shares with Jeni, to find an environment more conducive to his creativity. He goes to South Carolina where he helps his uncle, Eugene, set up a travel agency in Myrtle Beach. Conversations with Eugene and a client, Leonora, reveal that home is not necessarily where the heart is, and that much of life is about getting back to business.
In Search of Couches
Cast: 5 · Genre: comedy
A play about putting on the play "No Exit" by Jean-Paul Satre in which we learn that in the realm of the "theatre" hell can really be other people. Produced at the Burton-Taylor Theatre, Nov. 2002 Oxford.
Lady Godiva
Cast: 1 · Genre: drama, experimental, political · Keyword: sexual assault, communism, Romania
A play about sexual assault and the crimes of Romanian communism. A one-woman show set to spoken word poetry. Selected as part of the 2016 Mead Theatre Lab Program. Workshop production at Source Theatre in Washington DC, sold-out.
Neighbor, Nympho, Fighter, Friend
Cast: 1 · Genre: drama
One-woman's take on a bizarre family living next door when their lives are destroyed by an incomprehensible murder.
Ol Woman Naoia - tri blong hanred plis
Cast: 8–20 · Genre: comedy, drama
The play ("Women of Today - three shells of kava please") chronicles one day in the life of three young women who work at the same non-profit in Port Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu, an island archipelago in the South Pacific. Leipakoa suffers from domestic violence. Ana wins a scholarship to study abroad but struggles with the prospect of leaving her young daughter. Dawn is the expat volunteer who feels out of place in ni-Vanuatu society, as well as the expat world. The script is in English, Bislama (the local pidgin dialect) and French, sufficiently representing the melange of languages spoken in Port Vila. There is also a chorus of women who open and close the show, and participate throughout when the scene calls for extras. This project was created in the spring of 2010 in Port Vila, Vanuatu, by a group of local women, Ni-Vanuatu and expat (Alison Donley, Anna Naupa, Anthea Toka, Charlotte Pitts, Cristina A. Bejan, Ellenson Taurakoto, Geraldine Tavoa, Hanna Lindley-Jones, Jani Moon, Josiana Jackson, Olivia Johnson, Rebecca Olul, Sally Carter and Tracey Martin). The group collaborated with VANGO, the central headquarters of all NGOs in Vanuatu, the University of the South Pacific and UNIFeM, which sponsored the post-show talk-back on opening night. Performed at Club Vanuatu and Vanuatu Amateur Theatrical Society (VATS) Apr 2010.
Swami Shiva
Cast: 2 · Genre: comedy
A ten-minute play responding to Aaron Posner's "Life Sucks (Or the Present Ridiculous)" at Theatre J in Washington DC. Selected to be performed in their 'LoveSucks' series on February 14, 2015. Ella from "Life Sucks" goes to Shiva, her swami and yoga teacher, for a meditation and yoga session. Sexually repressed at home, she declares her love for Shiva only to discover that Shiva has a committed partner, Dimitri. Produced in the 2022 Colorado Women's Theatre Festival, Milibo Arts Theatre, Colorado Springs. Selected for staged reading in the 2015 "Love Sucks" Festival at Theatre J, Washington DC.
To Those Who Haven't Started Believing
Cast: 8 · Genre: drama, experimental, fantasy, political
The sequel to "To Those Who Haven't Stopped Thinking." Same characters, Same place. The Politician has been assassinated. Hannah and Vlad stand on Vlad's balcony and survey the destruction of the city. They kiss. Now what? Religion begins to infiltrate the Universe in a seemingly unstoppable way. Hannah attempts to 'help' and Vlad gives up in favor of serving the system.
To Those Who Haven't Stopped Thinking
Cast: 8 · Genre: experimental, fantasy, political
A play about philosophy, love and saving the Universe. Set in a desolate post-apocalyptic land called 'the Universe' characters Hannah (a young philosopher from 'the Beyond') and Vlad (an older teacher from 'the Beyond') come together to 'help' the people of the universe: the Citizens and the Givers. Six actors are required to play the Citizens And Givers, each role can be played by any gender. Produced at the Burton Taylor Theatre, Oxford, UK 2003.
Sample theatre reviews of Bejan's work
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bridge-over-cultures-wisd_b_5961650
https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2015/06/22/dc-black-theatre-festival-finally-quiet-in-my-head/
https://dcist.com/story/15/08/25/districtland-goes-from-fringe-to-a/
https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2014/06/29/capital-fringe-2014-preview-districtland-cristina-bejan/
https://clubuldepresatransatlantic.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/districtland-play-by-cristina-bejan/