Andrea Thome

Andrea Thome

Andrea Thome is a Chilean/Costa Rican-American playwright who grew up navigating the multiple landscapes and languages that inhabit her plays. Her play Pinkolandia received a rolling world premiere at INTAR Theater (NYC), Austin’s Salvage Vanguard Theater, Two River Theater (NJ), and 16th Street Theater (Chicago). It was awarded the Lark/Mellon Foundation’s Launching New Plays Fellowship, and was translated...
Andrea Thome is a Chilean/Costa Rican-American playwright who grew up navigating the multiple landscapes and languages that inhabit her plays. Her play Pinkolandia received a rolling world premiere at INTAR Theater (NYC), Austin’s Salvage Vanguard Theater, Two River Theater (NJ), and 16th Street Theater (Chicago). It was awarded the Lark/Mellon Foundation’s Launching New Plays Fellowship, and was translated into Russian and presented at Moscow’s Meyerhold Center. Other plays include Undone (Whitman Award; developed at Queens College, Victory Gardens, Lark), Worm Girl (Cherry Red Productions), various short plays and many collaborative projects. Her play translations (including Guillermo Calderón’s Neva) have been produced by the Public Theater, CTG, La Jolla Playhouse and more.

Andrea’s playwriting often experiments with the nature of theatrical collaboration. For En Garde Arts, she's currently writing Undocumented, inspired by and adapted from from her interviews and ongoing conversations with undocumented immigrants. The piece's form takes the shape of the musical celebrations called fandangos, a Mexican tradition that has migrated to the U.S., where communities gather to sing, dance, tell stories, and find solidarity in the face of struggle. Collaborating with composer Sinuhé Padilla-Isunza and director José Zayas, they shared an early reading at Joe’s Pub in November 2017, and are developing the full-length version in conversation with theaters, universities and community organizations. For the Public Theater, Andrea created Troy in collaboration with director Laurie Woolery and Public Works’ ACTivate Ensemble. This year and a half-long process, in which the community ensemble helped generate and performed the material, culminated in a full production at the Public in June 2016. She has also developed a unique collaborative process with director Lisa Rothe, composer Amir Khosrowpour and collaborating performers and storytellers including Mashuq Deen to create a multidisciplinary, musical piece, The Necklace of the Dove. Weaving together stories about love from Muslim Spain and a modern immigrant community in Queens, the piece was developed through Mabou Mines' RAP, Fulcrum Theater, The Lark and New Georges’ Audrey Residency.

Andrea's other plays in progress include Purgatorio Wonderland (developed through SPACE on Ryder Farm, Keen Company, Beehive Collective), and a play about an 11th-century astronomer from Muslim Spain, commissioned by Ensemble Studio Theatre/The Sloan Foundation. She co-created and has directed the Lark’s México-US Playwright Exchange Program since 2006, bringing together Mexican and US playwrights to create theatrical translations of new Mexican plays and build lasting collaborative relationships. Andrea co-founded fulana, an all-Latina satire collective that creates cutting-edge political & cultural parodies (www.fulana.org). She spent 5 formative years in San Francisco, producing 22 original plays with her Red Rocket Theater Company, and working with artists including Latina Theatre Lab, Campo Santo, Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Brava.

Andrea's fellowships and residencies include: NYFA, MacDowell Colony (awarded Thornton Wilder fellowship), New Voices/New York, the Camargo Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, SPACE on Ryder Farm’s Working Farm group, the City of Oakland, New York University (MFA Fellow), Women’s Project Lab, and Keen Company, New Dramatists resident playwright from 2009-2016. http://newdramatists.org/andrea-thome