Saviana Stănescu Explained

Saviana Stănescu
Birth Date:1967
Birth Place:Bucharest, Romania
Nationality:Romanian
Citizenship:Romania
United States
Alma Mater:New York University Tisch School of the Arts (BA, MFA)
National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest (PhD)
Occupation:Playwright, poet, professor
Employer:Ithaca College
Awards:Fulbright scholar, New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Script, UNITER Award, NYSCA Fellowship, New York Theatre Person of the Year, Indie Theater Hall of Fame

Saviana Stănescu (born 1967)[1] [2] is a Romanian-American award-winning playwright, ARTivist, and poet based in Ithaca, New York.

Hailed as one of the most exciting voices to have emerged in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Stănescu has received numerous accolades for her work, including the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Script (Waxing West) and the Best Romanian Play of the Year UNITER Award (Inflatable Apocalypse).[3] She has been inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame and was named the Indie Theater Person of the Year in 2010. Richard Schechner wrote on the cover of Stănescu's poetry book Diary of a Clone: "Saviana Stănescu is for and of the 21st century. She is hot and cool, witty and brave, sexy and weird, politically knowing and cynical. But most of all, she is an extraordinary writer."

After protesting in the streets as a student at the Romanian Revolution in 1989, Stănescu worked in the newly created Free Press as a cultural journalist at the daily newspaper Adevarul, a contributor to Radio Free Europe, and a talk-show host for TVR International (Necessary Polemics).[4] Her revolutionary spirit inspires all her theatrical and literary work.

Stănescu's cutting-edge plays have been developed/produced at Women's Project, La MaMa, 59E59, New York Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theater,[5] HERE, New Georges, Lark, Cherry, Civic Ensemble, Teatro La Capilla, and Teatrul Odeon, just to name a few. She has also served as the NYSCA playwright-in-residence for Women's Project, writer-in-residence of East Coast Artists, and Director of International Exchange for The Lark Play Development Center (TCG New Generations / New Leaders Fellow) in New York. Her US plays include Aliens with Extraordinary Skills,[6] Ants, White Embers (all published by Samuel French), Useless, Toys, For a Barbarian Woman, Lenin's Shoe, Waxing West, What Happens Next, Bee Trapped Inside a Window, and Zebra 2.0.

As a Fulbright fellow, she studied at NYU Tisch, receiving her MA in Performance Studies and an MFA in Dramatic Writing. Her PhD is in Theatre from the National University for Theatre and Film (UNATC) in Bucharest, Romania. Stănescu is also a celebrated professor and has taught Playwriting and Contemporary Theatre/Drama at NYU Tisch (2004-2012), Strasberg Institute for Theatre&Film, ESPa Primary Stages, and Fordham University. Currently, she works as a tenured Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Ithaca College.[7]

Early life

Born in Bucharest and raised in Curtea de Argeș, first capital of Walachia, and Pitești, an industrial town, in Romania, Saviana Stănescu spent her formative years under Nicolae Ceaușescu's dictatorship. She recalls in an interview having "rations of food and electricity, four hours of hot water per week, and two hours of TV programming per day, most of it filled with Ceaușescu's speeches."[4]

Saviana's grandparents were ethnic Aromanian.[8] Her mother, Mariana Stănescu (née Dima) is Aromanian and her father, Cornel Stănescu, track and field athlete and coach, is probably of Romani descent.

She was married to, director of the National Museum of Literature, Bucharest and father of Ada Condeescu, a Romanian actress, and Filip Condeescu.

Career

Before immigrating to the United States, Stănescu made a name for herself in Romania as a poet and playwright: she published three books of poetry, Love on Barbed Wire (1994), Advice for Housewives and Muses (1996), and The Outcast (1997). Her dramatic poem Proscrisa/Outcast was produced in Paris at the Theatre Gérard Philipe and at Teatrul Dramatic Galați in 1998. Her first plays Infanta, User's Guide (Infanta, Mod de Intrebuințare) and Final Countdown (Numărătoarea Inversă) were produced in Romania between 1998–2001, announcing a cutting-edge playwright to watch.

Stănescu studied playwriting in English with David Harrower and Phyllis Nagy, at the Summer International Theatre Academy in Germany. Upon returning to Romania, she won the UNITER (Romanian Theatre Guild) Best Play of the Year Award for The Inflatable Apocalypse (Apocalipsa Gonflabilă). She recalls the moment as having "officially made [her] a playwright."[3] The Inflatable Apocalypse was published in 2000.

Among Stănescu's many other notable publications is Black Milk, a Romanian-English collection of four plays and her first book of poetry in English – published in both Bucharest and New York – Google Me! [9]

Plays

Stănescu has written:[10]

Poetry

Honors

References

Notes
  • Bibliography

    • External links

    Notes and References

    1. Web site: cartea romaneasca / catalog / autori - 2015. 2016-10-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20161003031445/https://cartearomaneasca.ro/catalog/autori/stanescu-saviana/. 2019-02-18. 2016-10-03.
    2. Web site: Despre Matei VISNIEC, Saviana STANESCU, Radu MACRINICI... . Observator Cultural . ro . 2021-12-05.
    3. Web site: Interview with Saviana Stănescu: "One could say that I am a 17-year-old American playwright" . The Theatre Times . 2019-05-24 . 2021-12-05.
    4. Web site: An Interview with Romanian-Born, Award-Winning Playwright, Poet and Scholar Saviana Stănescu . The Theatre Times . 2020-01-11 . 2021-12-05.
    5. Web site: Ensemble Studio Theatre . Ensemble Studio Theatre . 2021-12-05.
    6. Web site: Aliens With Extraordinary Skills . Concord Theatricals . 2021-12-05.
    7. Web site: Saviana Stănescu Condeescu - Ithaca College. faculty.ithaca.edu. 2019-02-18.
    8. News: INTERVIU Saviana Stănescu, dramaturg: "Încă sunt atât de friguroasă, după toți anii ăia de comunism". Alexandra. Șerban. Adevărul. 9 November 2019. ro.
    9. Web site: SAVIANA STANESCU - photo by Jody Christopherson. saviana.com.
    10. Web site: Saviana Stanescu | New Play Exchange.
    11. Web site: Diary of a Clone . Spuyten Duyvil . 2021-12-05.

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