Saviana Stanescu is an award-winning Romanian playwright, poet and ARTivist based in New York/Ithaca. Her plays include Aliens with extraordinary skills, Ants (both published by Samuel French), Bee Trapped Inside the Window,Lenin’s Shoe, Useless, Toys, Bechnya, Hurt, Hobo-Jungle, Waxing West (2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award), What Happens Next, developed/produced at Women’s Project, La MaMa Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, EST, HERE, New Georges, Lark, Cherry, Civic Ensemble, Teatro La Capilla, Odeon, etc.
She published 5 books of poetry in English and Romanian: Google Me, The Outcast, Diary of a Clone, Love on Barbed Wire, and Advice for Housewives and Muses.
Honors include: Fulbright, NYTW Usual Suspect, EST member, Indie Theater Hall of Fame / Person of the Year, NYSCA playwright-in-residence with Women’s Project, TCG fellow, Women’s International Leadership, writer-in-residence for Richard Schechner’s East Coast Artists, Audrey residency – New Georges, John Golden Award, O’Neill Finalist, Yale Drama Series Runner-Up, KulturKontakt Vienna Artist-in-Residence, Best Play 2000 UNITER Award.
Saviana holds an MA in Performance Studies and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, and a PhD in Theatre from UNATC, Bucharest.
Currently she is an Associate Professor of Playwriting and Contemporary Theatre/Performance at Ithaca College and a Regional Visiting Fellow with the Cornell Institute for European Studies.
Saviana founded Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) and curates the annual showcase “New York with an Accent” at the Nuyorican Poets Café. (www.saviana.com)
photo by Jody Christopherson
With Poetic Theater Productions:
Featured Artist in Within/Without Borders Open Mic at NYTW Featuring Poetic Theater Productions
Writer of “The Wall Must Fall” in Poetic Lyricism presented with Musical Theatre Factory in Poetic License 2019: Resilience
Poet for Meet & Make: Songsmiths October 2018 Session presented with Musical Theatre Factory
Playwright in “Presents…” May 2011