Diana Lobontiu

Diana Lobontiu is a Romanian American playwright, actor, administrator, and educator based in Brooklyn. Diana holds a Playwriting MFA from Brooklyn College and graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in Theatre Studies and Psychology. They are an Adjunct Professor in creative writing and playwriting. They are interested in exploring the intersections of masculinity, power, failure, oppression, absurdity, and loneliness. Diana was named a 2023-24 MacDowell Fellow, a 2023 Jane Hoppen Resident with Paragraph Workspace for Writers, and received the 2023 Puffin Grant for My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay. Recent writing includes My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay (The Brick Theater 2023, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest 2022), Rentabutch (Bushwick Starr Reading Series Finalist 2023, MacDowell Fellowship), and If You’re A...

Diana Lobontiu is a Romanian American playwright, actor, administrator, and educator based in Brooklyn. Diana holds a Playwriting MFA from Brooklyn College and graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in Theatre Studies and Psychology. They are an Adjunct Professor in creative writing and playwriting. They are interested in exploring the intersections of masculinity, power, failure, oppression, absurdity, and loneliness. Diana was named a 2023-24 MacDowell Fellow, a 2023 Jane Hoppen Resident with Paragraph Workspace for Writers, and received the 2023 Puffin Grant for My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay. Recent writing includes My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay (The Brick Theater 2023, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest 2022), Rentabutch (Bushwick Starr Reading Series Finalist 2023, MacDowell Fellowship), and If You’re A Man At Night…You Gotta Be A Man In The Morning (The Workshop Theatre, 2023).. Diana has performed their solo show Sfânta: Hell Bent on Heaven, about a teenage wannabe Russian Orthodox saint, at the Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Kalamazoo, Oregon, and Orlando Fringe Festivals.

Scripts

Bump-->Set-->Spike-->Bruise

by Diana Lobontiu

Cast Size

2

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

experimental,

fantasy,

movement/physical,

romantic comedy

Mo (short for Molly, short for Mary, short for the *Virgin* Mary) likes to hit hard. Kat (short for Ekaterina Gordeeva - oh, brother) likes to rhyme. They wind up as volleyball partners. At 10, 13, 16, and in infinity, they wind up as volleyball partners: growing their garden of queer charm, cultivating their bruised volleyball forearms, and resisting their love for each other.

Well, until...

Mo (short for Molly, short for Mary, short for the *Virgin* Mary) likes to hit hard. Kat (short for Ekaterina Gordeeva - oh, brother) likes to rhyme. They wind up as volleyball partners. At 10, 13, 16, and in infinity, they wind up as volleyball partners: growing their garden of queer charm, cultivating their bruised volleyball forearms, and resisting their love for each other.

Well, until...

My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay

by Diana Lobontiu

Cast Size

2

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

experimental,

movement/physical

Wouldn’t it be nice if I weren’t the only gay person in my family? I wrote this play so I wouldn’t have to be. This is a mildly to moderately vengeful two-person show in which Diana (a lightly fictionalized version of myself) spills their guts in a series of solo-show-style confessional monologues about being a lesbian Romanian immigrant in America, while their cousin Nelu (a massively fictionalized version of...

Wouldn’t it be nice if I weren’t the only gay person in my family? I wrote this play so I wouldn’t have to be. This is a mildly to moderately vengeful two-person show in which Diana (a lightly fictionalized version of myself) spills their guts in a series of solo-show-style confessional monologues about being a lesbian Romanian immigrant in America, while their cousin Nelu (a massively fictionalized version of my real cousin) tells the audience his story about being a raspberry farmer in the Transylvanian countryside whose farm is a front for the mafia. Nelu is NOT gay. Except in this show.

If You're A Man At Night...You Gotta Be A Man In The Morning

by Diana Lobontiu

Cast Size

3

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

docudrama/historic,

drama,

experimental,

farce,

immersive,

movement/physical,

satire,

tragedy

Disgraced Olympic swimmer Ryan L*chte is dying of loneliness in his McMansion, desperately trying to milk attention from his robot wife Deirdre, a Cyclops Michael Ph*lps, and the audience themselves, while he mulls over celebrity, winner culture, and the geography of failure.

Rentabutch

by Diana Lobontiu

Cast Size

7—8

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

experimental,

farce,

horror,

movement/physical,

political,

satire

Desperate to escape the straight mainstream, Sal(ly) joins the Rentabutches, a group of butches who rent themselves out for manual labor but are more interested in “werking it” than in working. Sal tries to find their place within this supposed haven for dykes, navigating between the militant Souls of Every Butch Who Came Before (literally) and the jockstrap-clad, consent-obsessed, content-crazed butches at...

Desperate to escape the straight mainstream, Sal(ly) joins the Rentabutches, a group of butches who rent themselves out for manual labor but are more interested in “werking it” than in working. Sal tries to find their place within this supposed haven for dykes, navigating between the militant Souls of Every Butch Who Came Before (literally) and the jockstrap-clad, consent-obsessed, content-crazed butches at Rentabutch.

DUCKY

by Diana Lobontiu

Cast Size

2

Genre

comedy,

dark comedy,

drama,

experimental,

movement/physical,

mystery/thriller,

satire

It's Christmas. It's Brooklyn. The tens of thousands of roommates are watching Being John Malkovich downstairs. It's goddamn despicable. And Ducky (part duck/part detective) is trying to resist the seasonal urge to jump off of their apartment building and either fly south for the winter, or go splat on the pavement. Is this the year they finally do it?

Sfânta: Hell Bent on Heaven

by Diana Lobontiu

Cast Size

1

Genre

adventure,

biography,

comedy,

dark comedy,

docudrama/historic,

movement/physical,

romantic comedy,

tragedy

A solo show based on the Romanian Orthodox Saint Teodora de la Sihla, but BEFORE she became a saint. Back when she was just a young lesbian novitiate trying to strike it holy in 1680’s Romania. Teodora just wants to be holy already so she can be revered by pilgrims and perform over-the-top miracles. In the process she discovers that she’s evil, she likes women’s hips, and she has accidentally poisoned the whole...

A solo show based on the Romanian Orthodox Saint Teodora de la Sihla, but BEFORE she became a saint. Back when she was just a young lesbian novitiate trying to strike it holy in 1680’s Romania. Teodora just wants to be holy already so she can be revered by pilgrims and perform over-the-top miracles. In the process she discovers that she’s evil, she likes women’s hips, and she has accidentally poisoned the whole convent.