Monica Cross is a neurodivergent playwright who tells stories for people trying to find their place in the world.
She has seven full-length plays, including Wonder of Our Stage (winner of the Player’s Center New Play Festival, world premiere at Silk Moth Stage), Hero Dogberry (an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, read at the Contemporary Verse Drama Play Readings at the Shakespeare Institute, staged reading by Meadowlark Shakespeare Players at Mary Baldwin University), and The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny (developed at Whiskey Theatre Factory and Mary Baldwin University, finalist for Wisconsin Wrights, semifinalist for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries and The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference).
Her one act plays have been produced across the country at Fringe Festivals...
Monica Cross is a neurodivergent playwright who tells stories for people trying to find their place in the world.
She has seven full-length plays, including Wonder of Our Stage (winner of the Player’s Center New Play Festival, world premiere at Silk Moth Stage), Hero Dogberry (an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, read at the Contemporary Verse Drama Play Readings at the Shakespeare Institute, staged reading by Meadowlark Shakespeare Players at Mary Baldwin University), and The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny (developed at Whiskey Theatre Factory and Mary Baldwin University, finalist for Wisconsin Wrights, semifinalist for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries and The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference).
Her one act plays have been produced across the country at Fringe Festivals and Universities. Her sequel to Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano on the Moon has been produced at the Tampa International Fringe Festival, Minnesota Fringe Festival, Cincinnati Fringe Festival, Femme Fatale Fringe Festival, and by Whiskey Theatre Factory. Her 10-minute play On Robots and Raindrops has been produced at MadLab, Theatre Odyssey, Jersey City Theater Center, and was a semifinalist for Edgefest. Changeling, a fairytale one act, had a reading at Tiger’s Heart Players, a workshop at the Hippodrome Theatre, and was produced by Windmill Theatre Company at New College of Florida and the University of Evansville.
She is a founding member of the collective Playwrights Thriving, an international community of playwrights uplifting one another. She was a member of the Sarasota Area Playwrights Society for four years (2016-2019). She was a Member of Association for Theatre in Higher Education in 2019 and 2021, they developed On Robots and Raindrops at the ATHE New Play Development Workshop. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild (2018-present), and volunteered as the Northern Florida Ambassador for a year (2021-2022). She is also a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.
She holds a Master of Letters and Master of Fine Arts in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin College (now Mary Baldwin University), and has most recently trained at the Kennedy Center Summer Playwright Intensive under Gary Garrison.
In 2018, she was awarded the John Ringling Towers Individual Artist Award for Performing Arts. She was a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in 2019. In 2023, she was a Semifinalist for the Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship.
She has been guest on an number of podcasts talking about theatre and playwriting. Some interviews have been on specific topics: Hamlet To Hamilton (discussing writing as a Neurodivergent Playwright) and If This Goes On (Don’t Panic)! (discussing science fiction theatre and my writing in that genre). Others have been interviews generally discussing my writing and career as a playwright: Arts Calling, Sonitotem, and Active Listeners Podcast.
She has recently completed drafts of two new adaptations: Romeo and Juliet & Zombies and Creation: A Frankenstein Story.