Carissa Atallah

Carissa Atallah

Carissa Atallah is an emerging playwright from sunny Southern California. Her work has been championed by organizations including The Kennedy Center, Concord Theatricals, and The Playwrights Foundation—and performed throughout major cities in the US. Most recently, Carissa was named winner of the 45th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival for her script "Voir Dire". In 2019, “Voir...
Carissa Atallah is an emerging playwright from sunny Southern California. Her work has been championed by organizations including The Kennedy Center, Concord Theatricals, and The Playwrights Foundation—and performed throughout major cities in the US. Most recently, Carissa was named winner of the 45th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival for her script "Voir Dire". In 2019, “Voir Dire” garnered national recognition as a finalists in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in the National 10 Minute Play Award category. “Voir Dire” was performed at The John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC that same year then produced for a seven show run at the Dorie Theater in Hollywood, CA. It is soon to be published by Concord Theatricals.

In 2019, Carissa’s full-length play “Brown Face” was a semifinalist in the The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, established by the Playwrights Foundation. Carissa was also selected in 2019 to participate in The Rogue Lab new play incubator with Rogue Artists Ensemble, a hyper-theater group based in Los Angeles. In 2017, Carissa was awarded a Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship to study playwriting with the University of California Riverside’s Creative Writing for the Performing Arts MFA program. She also holds a BA in English with a minor in Art from the University of California Merced.

Plays

  • Brown Face by Carissa Atallah
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–8
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: brown face, Chicana + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, political
    Keyword: brown face, Chicana, Latinx, american immigration, college age, spoken word, American dreamers, full length
    GRACIA is a Chicana writer and DREAMer. In order to draw attention to her work, but not her undocumented status, Gracia convinces her white, US-born BFF MARIZA to perform her poetry at local open mics. When Gracia’s words launch Mariza into becoming a social media Latinx icon, their friendship is tested by issues of privilege and cultural appropriation. Part play, part poetry slam, “Brown Face” follows a group...
    GRACIA is a Chicana writer and DREAMer. In order to draw attention to her work, but not her undocumented status, Gracia convinces her white, US-born BFF MARIZA to perform her poetry at local open mics. When Gracia’s words launch Mariza into becoming a social media Latinx icon, their friendship is tested by issues of privilege and cultural appropriation. Part play, part poetry slam, “Brown Face” follows a group of college students as they navigate their identities in the competitive world of spoken word poetry.
  • Voir Dire by Carissa Atallah
    Recommendations: 5
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–9
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: metoo, Times Up + 5 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, experimental, political
    Keyword: metoo, Times Up, feminism, socio-political, women, sexual assault, sexism
    Have you, or anyone close to you, been sexually assaulted in your lifetime?
    “Voir Dire”, a Kennedy Center award nominated short play, follows a diverse set of women as they are interviewed for jury duty on a sexual assault case in New York City.