DesertCreative

Recently named an Artistic Associate at Arizona Theatre Company, christopher oscar peña is a story-teller originally from California, now residing in New York and LA. Recent world premieres include his plays The Strangers, commissioned and produced by the Clarence Brown Theatre, and a cautionary tail, produced by the Flea Theatre. He recently co-directed the world premiere adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s The Haunted Life at Merrimack Repertory Theatre. His work has been developed by Playwrights Horizons, the Goodman Theater, Public Theater, Two River Theater, INTAR, Ontological Hysteric Incubator, Playwrights Realm, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Old Vic, Orchard Project, Naked Angels, and New York Theatre Workshop, among others. Upcoming projects include his first musical, an adaptation of the novel, The First Rule of Punk, commissioned by The Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, and the world premiere of his play how to make an American Son in a co-production between Arizona Theatre Company and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. In television, he wrote for the Golden Globe-nominated debut season of the CW show Jane the Virgin, HBO’s Insecure, Starz original Sweetbitter, Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem, and is currently developing an original series for Netflix. christopher is a proud member of New Dramatists, an Artistic Patriot at Merrimack Rep, and has been published by NoPassport Press and Smith & Krauss. A two-time Sundance Institute Theater Fellow, he has also held fellowships with the Lark Play Development Center, was a recipient of the Latino Playwrights Award, an Emerging Artist Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, and was a part of the US/UK Exchange (Old Vic New Voices).