Christian Mendonça

Christian Mendonça

Christian Mendonça is a New Jersey-based Portuguese-American playwright, whose work has been read at the Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation's Roundtable Reading Series (Come Flores, 2020), Art House Productions' INKubator New Play Festival (Flowers for Men, 2022), Premiere Stages' New Play Festival (Flowers for Men, 2023), and American Stages' Lift Every Voice Festival (Flowers for Men,...
Christian Mendonça is a New Jersey-based Portuguese-American playwright, whose work has been read at the Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation's Roundtable Reading Series (Come Flores, 2020), Art House Productions' INKubator New Play Festival (Flowers for Men, 2022), Premiere Stages' New Play Festival (Flowers for Men, 2023), and American Stages' Lift Every Voice Festival (Flowers for Men, 2024). Further distinctions include: Finalist for the Goldberg Play Prize (American Quality, 2018), Semifinalist for Landing Theater's New American Voices Play Festival (Filomene, 2021), Finalist for DISQUIET International Literary Program’s Luso-American Fellowship (Untitled Screenplay, 2023), and a commission for Art House Productions via the Hudson County Historic Partnership Program (Dearest Paweł, 2023). He is in residency with the New Jersey Play Lab through 2024.

Plays

  • Flowers for Men by Christian Mendonça
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: drama
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    Keyword: Toxic Masculinity, healing + 4 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: Toxic Masculinity, healing, forgiveness, loneliness, immersive group therapy, flowers
    Henri, a social worker with funding for a pilot program, brings together a group of men in a community garden to unpack their understandings of masculinity. At each session, they must care for an assigned flower that represents a fragile relationship that they need to work on in their personal lives. Will this group of six men make it out of this program ready to grow, or will they be hell-bent on (self-)...
    Henri, a social worker with funding for a pilot program, brings together a group of men in a community garden to unpack their understandings of masculinity. At each session, they must care for an assigned flower that represents a fragile relationship that they need to work on in their personal lives. Will this group of six men make it out of this program ready to grow, or will they be hell-bent on (self-)destruction? A review of toxic masculinity, machismo, forgiveness, and the scarcity of grace and self-love in male identifying communities.
  • Conventuais by Christian Mendonça
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic + 3 more
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    Keyword: faith, Nuns + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, faith-based, period
    Keyword: faith, Nuns, sweets, pain, pleasure, truth, period, Portugal, comedy, drama
    The late fall / early winter of 1847, Portugal. Sister Marta was excommunicated from the convent for having been caught with an abortifacient plant in her quarters (yes, while pregnant). With the convent in a dangerous flurry of politics, shame, and doubt, Madre Superiora is doing her best to keep the other sisters in line. However, the three sisters who are in charge of the conventual sweets are about to...
    The late fall / early winter of 1847, Portugal. Sister Marta was excommunicated from the convent for having been caught with an abortifacient plant in her quarters (yes, while pregnant). With the convent in a dangerous flurry of politics, shame, and doubt, Madre Superiora is doing her best to keep the other sisters in line. However, the three sisters who are in charge of the conventual sweets are about to experience a set of miracles and choices that will challenge everything. A play about trust, faith, pain, and pleasure in the face of institutional abuse.
  • Dearest Paweł by Christian Mendonça
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: Social Movements, Strikes + 8 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama, period, political
    Keyword: Social Movements, Strikes, riots, period, Polish, World War I, New Jersey, Bayonne, historical, drama
    July 1915, Bayonne, NJ. Polish immigrant workers for the Standard Oil, Tidewater Oil, and other refineries are striking for higher wages and humane workdays. Siblings Iwo and Gita, alongside their cousin Szymon, navigate the complexities of what it means to partake in this strike while their loved ones are fighting World War I back in the divided motherland. When the strikes take a violent turn, each of the...
    July 1915, Bayonne, NJ. Polish immigrant workers for the Standard Oil, Tidewater Oil, and other refineries are striking for higher wages and humane workdays. Siblings Iwo and Gita, alongside their cousin Szymon, navigate the complexities of what it means to partake in this strike while their loved ones are fighting World War I back in the divided motherland. When the strikes take a violent turn, each of the three must reckon with the choices that led them there while confronting the limited options this new life has to offer. A play about capitalism's social framework and its innate and unstoppable disintegration of family dynamics and identity. Commissioned by Art House Productions through the Hudson County History Partnership Program.
  • Filomene by Christian Mendonça
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: body autonomy, grief + 5 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, fable/folktale, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: body autonomy, grief, trauma, gaslighting, psychological, supernatural, alligator
    Alma comes home to a gator in her living room, only the gator might actually just be her husband, Marquis, or at the very least, may have eaten him. Alma calls Low to help her get rid of it. Only there’s something off about Low. Come to think of it, just about everything seems off about Alma. A look at grief, guilt, autonomy (both of body and dreams), and the permission we need to heal and move on.
  • American Quality by Christian Mendonça
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: drama, tragedy
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    Keyword: American Dream, Immigrants + 6 more
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    Keyword: American Dream, Immigrants, homelessness, Race, Newark, New Jersey, New York City, Portuguese
    Over the course of a summer, between 11pm-4am every night, three men convene at a parking lot in Newark, NJ, initially to each other’s chagrin… then, they get to know each other. Can that little morsel of connection break through the racist socio-economic underbelly of their American Dreams, or will the Brick City grind be their undoing?