Gena Treyvus

Gena Treyvus

Gena Treyvus is an emerging writer from Brooklyn and a senior earning her BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Her plays include Strawberries at the Datcha and Operation #23: Steal the Mona Lisa, both of which received workshops and readings at the FreshPlay Festival at MCC Theater. Strawberries at the Datcha was a finalist for the Jewish Plays Project’s Annual Playwriting Contest,...
Gena Treyvus is an emerging writer from Brooklyn and a senior earning her BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Her plays include Strawberries at the Datcha and Operation #23: Steal the Mona Lisa, both of which received workshops and readings at the FreshPlay Festival at MCC Theater. Strawberries at the Datcha was a finalist for the Jewish Plays Project’s Annual Playwriting Contest, and the play is featured in their inaugural podcast series. Gena is also a proud alum of the MCC Theater Youth Company, where she was a part of the Performance Lab, Playwriting Lab, and the Ambassadors program. Her recent playwriting work at The Theatre School includes her play 21 North, which was workshopped at the Wrights of Spring Festival and was chosen for an upcoming educational production as a Studio as part of The Theatre School’s 2023 season. At The Theatre School, she's also gained experience with devising, assistant directing, and new play dramaturgy. Gena currently works as a preschool Hebrew School Teacher. In her free time, she likes to read and crochet.

Plays

  • 21 North by Gena Treyvus
    Cast: 
    6–8
    ·
    Genre: drama
    Genre: drama
    In the north wing of the 21st floor of Bellevue Hospital in New York City, Nicole is the new girl in the psych ward. 21 North follows not only Nicole, but an ensemble of teenagers, many of whom have been hospitalized for months already. 21 North follows the development of friendships in this heavily surveillanced space, where patients paradoxically also have a very large amount of unstructured time. The...
    In the north wing of the 21st floor of Bellevue Hospital in New York City, Nicole is the new girl in the psych ward. 21 North follows not only Nicole, but an ensemble of teenagers, many of whom have been hospitalized for months already. 21 North follows the development of friendships in this heavily surveillanced space, where patients paradoxically also have a very large amount of unstructured time. The characters fall in love and hurt each other and do whatever they can manage to pass the time. This is a play about people making community during their toughest moments.
  • Strawberries at the Datcha by Gena Treyvus
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama, faith-based
    Genre: drama, faith-based
    Strawberries at the Datcha starts in 1996 in Zhodino Belarus. 15-year-old Yelena develops a new relationship with her classmate Nicholai, while simultaneously grappling with experiences of antisemitism. When her family gets approved to immigrate to the United States via a refugee visa, she struggles with what it means to lose her home and her friendships. Yelena and her family move in with Irina, their only...
    Strawberries at the Datcha starts in 1996 in Zhodino Belarus. 15-year-old Yelena develops a new relationship with her classmate Nicholai, while simultaneously grappling with experiences of antisemitism. When her family gets approved to immigrate to the United States via a refugee visa, she struggles with what it means to lose her home and her friendships. Yelena and her family move in with Irina, their only family member in America, and the rest of the play takes place in the kitchen of Irina’s home in the Russian-Jewish neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay in New York City. Yelena’s family navigates living in a city where they’re safe enough to engage with their culture and religion for the first time, while also struggling to pay their bills and find employment in a country that doesn’t speak their language. Much of this play follows Yelena through a series of brief, inconvenient, and expensive landline phone calls to Nicholai back home.