Mina Samuels

I am a full-time writer, editor and performance artist, and in a previous incarnation, a litigation lawyer and human rights advocate.

I have written and performed two solo shows directed by Lisa Chess. Hazards, a one-woman performance piece in the absurdist tradition, combines spoken word, punctuated by extreme movement, to bring us face to face with the question of our own significance in the universe. Hazards participated in the Toronto Fringe Festival, United Solo in NYC, where it won Best Avant-Garde Show, Austin’s Frontera Fest and the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Do You Know Me? is a solo show about memory, loss and identity. Do You Know Me? showcased at the Cherry Lane Theatre, participated in United Solo, where it won Best Drama and the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival.

My most recent project is devising and writing the script for Because I Am Your Queen (a feminist fantasia in one act). This is an ensemble play for 10 women over 40, for which I brought together a collaborative of women artists dedicated to creating imaginative feminist theatre. Tectonic Theatre Project's Moment Work enlivens our work, as well as movement techniques ranging from Lecoq, clown and modern dance. An artistic residency at the Orchard Project in June 2016 added some rocket fuel to our work and we had our first public reading in November 2016. The play was also featured as part of the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Playwrights Playground series in January 2017 and a workshop reading at the Department of Theatre at University of Western Ontario in Canada in March 2017. The first full production is at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in March 2019.

I have written three books, Run Like a Girl 365 Days a Year (coming out in June 2019), Run Like a Girl, for which I appeared on The Today Show, and a novel, The Queen of Cups; as well as a collection of short stories, Crucifixion and Other Fictions, released on CD-only.