SAVIANA STANESCU* is a cutting-edge award-winning Romanian playwright, poet, and ARTivist based in NY, author of Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, For a Barbarian Woman, Don’t / Dream, Bee Trapped Inside the Window, Zebra 2.0, What Happens Next, Ants, Lenin’s Shoe, Hurt, Useless, Toys, and other plays centering "outsiders"/"outcasts".

Winner of New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Play (Waxing West) and UNITER Award for Best Romanian Play of the Year (Inflatable Apocalypse), Saviana has published over 20 books of plays and poetry, written in English or Romanian, translated and produced around the world. Other honors: Fulbright, Indie Theatre Hall of Fame, John Golden Award, KulturKontakt, Marulic Prize for Best European Radiodrama, Inaugural Audrey Residency with New Georges, etc.

After protesting in the streets at the Romanian Revolution against Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, Saviana worked in the newly created free press as a cultural journalist for Adevărul Daily, a contributor to Radio Free Europe, and a TV talk-show host for TVR International.

She moved to New York in August, 2001, to study at NYU, starting her career from scratch. Saviana's US plays have been developed/produced off-Broadway at Women’s Project, La MaMa, 59E59, NYTW, EST, HERE, New Georges, The New Group, Lark; regionally at the Hangar Theatre, Cherry Artspace, Civic Ensemble, HartBeat Ensemble, Know Theatre, B Street Theatre, Traveling Jewish Theatre; and globally at Teatro La Capilla in Mexico City, Teatrul Odeon in Bucharest, Dramalabbet in Stockholm, etc.

*MA in Performance Studies, MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, Tisch. PhD in Theatre from the National University for Theatre&Film (UNATC), Bucharest, Romania. Associate Professor of Playwriting & Contemporary Theatre at Ithaca College, Visiting Scholar at Cornell University. Founder/artistic director of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY). www.saviana.com, www.savianastanescu.com.