Diana Burbano

Beheading Columbus follows two sisters down a trail of DNA deception and makes them face race and colorism in the Latinx community and in their own family. Lana is white passing, Susi isn’t, and that's been a point of conflict their whole life. Through DNA testing they discover that Lana has a white father. The DNA test also reveals that Susi, who is mixed race, has the genes for the Alzheimers that is destroying their mother. Add to that, they discover that the previously unknown other father is a fertility doctor who has sired at least 40 mixed race children. Through love and a massive sense of humor, the sisters work at decolonizing themselves from the inside out.

*Kilroys' List 2020* *Featured in Steppenwolf's "The Mix" Music by FEA
When punk rock exploded in L.A., Sally and Lou were there: feminists, Latinas, queens of noise. One went pop, one stayed punk, but sparks from their tumultuous friendship remain. Decades later, they try overcome old wounds, forgive each other, and rock as hard as they ever did.

A new work from this South Coast Repertory teaching artist, developed in Latino Theatre Alliance/LA's Playwrights Nest Festival.

Elsa is a primatologist with a secret that’s easier to bear when she’s at work with Wookie, the orangutan she’s training to speak. Her worlds collide when her nephew AJ, a teenager who is nonverbal and on the autism spectrum, forms a relationship with Wookie. Sapience is a ground-breaking and imaginative new play about how we communicate and seek to be understood.

A modern female-driven take on Somerset Maugham's Rain, Lluvia is about a group of travelers stranded in the Amazons. Mendoza, an arrogant and self-righteous Christian missionary, attempts to reform Saidi Torres, a young woman he mistakenly assumes is a prostitute. The missionary eventually spends several days alone with the woman, "cleansing her soul of sin." The ending is surprising, violent, and ambiguous. Who fooled who?
Written for the Odyssey's Writers Group, 2023

Leona is a pop icon, trapped in her role and betrayed by the men in her life. She escapes by becoming Leo, a brooding rocker, and sets out to take revenge on the men who exploited her.
A modern verse play based on Ana Caro's Spanish Golden Age classic Amor, Agravio y Mujer, As Girls Go replaces the Spanish court with Latine Pop Stars in Hollywood, California, and plays with gender roles, sexuality, and #metoo while dismantling the myth of Don Juan and his brand of toxic masculinity.

The Vertical City, an audio drama, is a character study set in a future-Portland built to survive the effects of climate change and imagines how technology might evolve society at the end of the 21st century, both for better and worse.

A 2023 MACH 33 Festival finalist, IMMUNITY follows a diverse team of scientists working to solve a global crisis. At the start of the global pandemic, a team at a nationally renowned science Laboratory are put together as a Think Tank to find creative solutions to the urgent needs of the global community. The team is diverse, both in specialties as well as in nationality, race, and upbringing. The inevitable conflict arises. The scientists, living through the pandemic themselves, are sometimes overwhelmed by the needs in their own lives, but their focus and talents are driven to solve the crises as they arise.

Mother, a retired silent film star, moves herself and her teenage daughter to an isolated tropical island. Their calm existence is upended when an English soldier moves into their village. Mother soon discovers that, because of who they are, she and the soldier both feel like monsters. She then has to choose between her fear, and the promise of an unconventional love.

In 2021 Lower Depth Theatre began developing the third play in our “Cycle of Violence” Commission Series with LA based playwright, Diana Burbano. This full-length play examines incarceration & women in prison through magical realism and the perspective of an imprisoned goddess. The process began in virtual Zoom boxes where it stayed for 12 months. In 2022 we finally gathered in person to workshop Diana's new play, “Working Title: Goddess, Unchained” at A Noise Within Theatre as part of their Noise Now program.

In the near future, an inexplicable plague infests La Gran Colombia. Ingrid Bolivar--the brilliant, mad ex-wife of Colombia's leader--is the only one who knows that the plague is carried by young women of the streets, whom she adopts and uses as weapons against the government. Policarpa, a girl with magical gifts, is supposed to be Ingrid's secret apocalyptic weapon. But when Policarpa falls in love with a top government official, she resists becoming an instrument of destruction and instead seeks to become a savior through sacrifice.

Rooted in traditional Latin American magical realism, the nightmare magic science fiction world of Policarpa exists in a neither here-or-there.

Policarpa has been developed at The Drama League's Rough Draft series, Theatricum Botanicum Seedlings, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab Latinx Play Project, and Milagro Theatre’s Ingenio play reading series. It received an Honorable Mention for the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award.

It received an Honorable Mention, Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s 2017 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award and was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Festival 2018 and a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation Festival 2018.

SILUETA is a two-person play inspired by the true story of Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-American performance artist, and sculptor, whose life ended in a harrowing 34-story fall from the SoHo apartment she shared with her husband, Minimalist sculptor, Carl Andre. Ana, 36 at the time of her death in 1985, was a rising star in the SoHo art scene, known for her signature siluetas–provocative impressions of her naked body in blood, earth, fire, and other manifestations of nature. Carl, already famous as a founding father of geometric, building-block Minimalism, was past the peak of his career. It was a marriage of opposing artistic temperaments, fueled by ferocious ego and ambition on the part of both. Due to the emotional violence of their relationship and Carlʼs enigmatic behavior following Anaʼs death, he was accused and tried for her murder. Although Carl was eventually acquitted, the incident polarized the art world and became a cause célèbre for feminists, many of whom still believe in Carlʼs guilt. Although there is much speculation about what happened that terrible night, only Carl, now an old man still living in that same 34th-floor apartment, knows. Or does he? Silueta imagines an elderly Carl, desperate to recover artistic potency, but blocked by a past he is unwilling to remember and face. He is haunted by the passionately ʻrealʼ ghost of Ana, equally desperate to discover the truth of her death and, more importantly, the truth of her life and Carlʼs love.

Diana Burbano’s GHOSTS OF BOGOTÁ is the story of three siblings, now late 20s to late 30s, who return to their parents’ birth country when their grandfather dies. GHOSTS is a universal story about family secrets, told through a very specific Latinx lens, and a story about that unique immigrant experience of never feeling fully at home in any country that can claim you.

"Characters from Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT and THE TEMPEST intertwine when a set of twins is shipwrecked on an island. As the siblings race to reunite, they encounter a young girl with magical powers, a deceptively cute fairy, and a horned monster with a heart of gold. CALIBAN'S ISLAND explores the struggle between wishes, dreams and wisdom. Bring the entire family to this witty, whimsical celebration of language and life. Part PETER AND THE STARCATCHER, part Shakespeare, Burbano writes with a unique voice all her own." --
Headwaters: Creede Rep's New Play Program

The spring/summer of 2020, a big-box grocery store in Santa Ana, Orange County, CA.
Three young essential workers, forced to grow up fast during the pandemic, fight racism as well as the virus.

Flint, MI. The water in the town has been poisoned. Thia Stockmann, a bright young medical student, is confronted by her upwardly mobile brother, Pete, about a blog she wrote regarding the poisoning of Flint’s water supply. This brings a lot of unwanted attention to Flint and will have repercussions on the economy. Peter accuses Thia of being selfish and to solve this problem in a more quiet way.

In the media classroom reporters discuss the pros and cons of running Thia’s article bashing the reputation of the government. The group has a change of heart about how valuable it is to expose the government. They realize that printing this article will do more damage to the situation. Angry, Thia decides that she can fight this battle on his own. She calls a meeting at the community college.

Thia talks about the contamination of the water but also gets into the town leaders and how they are corrupt as are most of the citizens of Flint. Anger starts to grow. By the end of the meeting the town has rebelled at Thia and have marked her as an enemy of the people.

The landlord evicts them from their house, and Thia’s allies get fired for having progressive opinions. Thia stays true to her principles. She decides to accept her fate and become "an enemy of the people" if that is what it takes to do what is right.

After acid is thrown in a young woman's face, a Phoenix (Fenix) rises.
A Colombian woman and acid attack survivor who successfully campaigned for a law targeting perpetrators of acid attacks in her country tells her story.

3 young teens land in a magical world, due to a violent act in the real one.
Dedicated to Kimberly Vaughn Hart.

DREAMING is an intimate and poignant look into the lives of a mother and daughter, both hoping for a secure and better future in America. The daughter, of Mexican immigrant parents, was brought here as a child, is now a DACA member and faces the threat of US deportation. Her mother, without a husband and lack of money, has returned to Mexico, hoping to return to the States one day, under better circumstances.

A mourner remembers her cousin, a Pakistani girl, who lost her life while on an exchange program.

A gunman has opened fire on a college campus. Now someone has to clean it up.

A young woman discovers to her delight and astonishment that her 2 childhood heroines are as Mexican as she is.

A young man is hit by a drunk driver. He lies in a coma as his family and Tupac struggles to help him cope with his new reality.

Un drama nuevo imaginado de una historia verdadera.
Traduccion de Emiro Burbano
En 1985, Una noche cálida y húmeda en Nueva York. Una pelea entre esposos. La artista Cubana Ana Mendieta cae 34 pisos desde la ventana de su apartamento a la calle. Quizás un accidente trágico,? un asesinato,?
Silueta se imagina al esposo de Ana el escultor Carl André Como si estuviera viviendo hoy, en el apartamento del piso 34 que compartía con la hermosa y ambiciosa Ana. El está frustrado con la pérdida de su valor artístico y la sospecha que todavía persiste de la muerte de Ana no fue tan inocente como parece. El fantasma de Ana sigue sin descanso en el sitio mismo de la tragedia. Tienen ambos, una terrible obsesión con la misma pregunta, de lo que pasó en esa noche fatal.
Silueta es un drama de dos personas basado en la historia verídica de Ana Mendieta que cayó a su muerte en 1985. Era una estrella joven y luminosa en el mundo del arte de esa época. Su esposo, André era uno de los fundadores del minimalismo. El fue juzgado por el asesinato y fue declarado no culpable. El drama explora su volátil relación personal.
La versión inglesa de silueta fue un drama de taller técnico seleccionado por 2013 Great Plains Theater Conference Y fue finalista (1-12) en el Ashand New Play Festival 2014. Fue Uno de cuatro dramas escogidos en el Cygnet Theatre/Playwright’s in Process festival 2014 Y leído en el escenario en San Diego.

A young woman meets her heroine, while doing battle with seal, sea lions and developers in La Jolla, CA.

The true story of the liberation of Colombia. As told by the enslaved female soldier Jonatas, mimic and storyteller.

Marie is dying, but has no regrets.

Aquilina is a clever, courageous, and imaginative girl who leads a group of orphans in a recently abandoned wild west town. Will the railroad town disappear completely? Will Aquilina and her crew be sent to orphanages around the country? Join us to find the missing deed and solve the mystery of their town’s original founders!

Jeopardy, a fight and a missing testicle does not mean you get to tear my gun from my cold dead hands.

An woman is about to be executed for her work freeing young victims of sexual slavery. Her younger counterpart comes to rescue her, but is faced with a woman who prefers martyrdom to life.

The tragedy in Charlottesville served to open a scar in America. The white supremacist movement has come out of their hidden corners and darkened basements, helped along by their leader in Washington. This in and of itself is frightening, but I hold out hope. There is also a strong and vocal resistance movement who have put their bodies on the line to defy those who would take this country into the dark ages. There has been loss, and likely will be more, but their defiance will serve as a beacon for others to come and stand against the darkness.

We MUST continue to be decent, and outspoken, and to protect each other, in spite of the evil that is trying to overwhelm our compassion.

Three young Latinas are swept up in ICE raids. Citizenship won't save them. Only an act of sacrifice will.

A young woman tries to consign her engagement ring after the violent death of her fiancé.

Jaqui has invited her boyfriend Martin (half Black, half White, all liberal.) to Christmas at her Latinx MAGA lovin' family's house in Mequon, Wisconsin.

Two step siblings come to a tiny truce over a video game.

Four little Shakespearean fairies try to figure out how to get the old man out of his rut.

Little Miss Junior Orange County is a fierce competition as three girls vie for the crown. The battle is heated until hey discover they have much more in common than dumb grown up standards of beauty.

A young goth girl explains her fascination with Theda Bara.

An older woman learns to live again while on the AIDS ride.

A child with cancer seeks to lighten his burden

A beautiful Slovenian ex-model confronts her son's tutor and faces questions about her place in the world.

Monologues for Woman 40's-50's
#fabulousmonsters

Slade aka Sally Rogers is a hard living, seen it all punk rocker from the 70’s, alive, sober and cynical as hell. 40’s-50’s

A professor teaches her student facial reconstruction.
Written for 365 Women a Year.

Una joven descubreque sus 2 heroínas infantiles son tan mexicanas como ella.

Sylvia Rivera sets the record straight on Stonewall, the gay liberation movement and the erasure of queer people of color and members of the LGBTQ community who do not conform to gender norms or typical gender categories. From her own words.

A woman without a home makes friends with a philosophical octopus on Venice Beach.

Pobre Ri has crushes on white boys and they do things like trying to teach them how to ski.

A quarantine monologue about a tourist stuck on a cruise ship. It's a small world after all.

Zoomerlandia is a short play by Diana Burbano written for online viewing. It explores the lives of three recent college graduates as they navigate the risks and joys of a complicated 2020 summer.

A monologue about the murder of Vanessa Marquez at the hands of the South Pasadena police officers. The officers were exonerated. Vanessa's mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit after failing to receive justice. #defundthepolice

A prequel to Titus Andronicus. Tamora sets in motion the events of the play by killing Titus' son.

An elderly sex symbol takes a young man to her room. The secrets she tells him aren't the ones she wanted to hear

A woman’s wanted child is dying inside her, but the state she lives in has outlawed abortion. A monologue from “The Abortion Chronicles”

A short monologue para un veterano, based on truth. Written and honoring Tom Sandoval.