Chris Van Strander
pipe optional
is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and performer, whose work’s been produced and developed internationally at over two dozen theaters and festivals.
His screenplay 25 won the Filmmakers International Screenwriting Award, and he received a Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Grant for his play Retrospective. Chris is published by Indie Theater Now and the International Centre for Women Playwrights. He’s been a Finalist/Semifinalist for The O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, Page 73 Productions’ Playwriting Fellowship, The Playwrights’ Center’s PlayLabs, Ensemble Studio Theatre One Act Marathon, and an EST/Sloan Project Commission, among others.
Recent plays include: Edison's Elephant (co-written with David Koteles; Metropolitan Playhouse); Say What I Said Then (NY Madness); Baby Ivy (Co-Op Theatre East); O Captain My Captain (UP Theater); Truth Clown (Mottola Theatre Project); With You (EndTimes Productions/La Petite Morgue); True Nails (Washington DC’s Source Festival); and AfterLife (co-written with Candy Simmons; RedEye in Minneapolis, following a two-year tour across the US
and Canada).
In addition, Chris’s work’s been produced and developed with: Circle East Theater Company (formerly the Circle Repertory Lab), The NY International Fringe Festival, The Management, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Live Girls! Theater (Seattle), Theater Catalyst (Philadelphia), The Asylum Theatre (Las Vegas), The Rogue Valley Plays Festival (Ashland, OR), Emerging Artists Theatre, Collective:Unconscious, The 92nd Street Y, The Director’s Company, UP Theater Company, and The Neighborhood Playhouse.
Chris is a member of The Dramatists Guild, The Playwrights’ Center, Circle East Theater Company, SunsetGun Productions (Minneapolis), ‘Wright On! Playwrights Group, and Packawallop Productions’ Pack. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (Playwrights Horizons/Experimental Theater Wing), and studied with Maria Irene Fornes, Mac Wellman, and Jeffrey M. Jones in the Flea Theater’s ‘Pataphysics Workshops.
As an actor, Chris has appeared on Broadway, Off-Off-, regionally, and in film/TV. He’s originally from Allentown, PA, and lives in New York City. Every ten years he hikes across Spain.
Chris is especially interested in creating work for nontraditional spaces: site-specifically, his plays have been staged everywhere from boats to bars to the rooftop pool of a Holiday Inn.
My Szymkowicz interview.
His screenplay 25 won the Filmmakers International Screenwriting Award, and he received a Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Grant for his play Retrospective. Chris is published by Indie Theater Now and the International Centre for Women Playwrights. He’s been a Finalist/Semifinalist for The O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, Page 73 Productions’ Playwriting Fellowship, The Playwrights’ Center’s PlayLabs, Ensemble Studio Theatre One Act Marathon, and an EST/Sloan Project Commission, among others.
Recent plays include: Edison's Elephant (co-written with David Koteles; Metropolitan Playhouse); Say What I Said Then (NY Madness); Baby Ivy (Co-Op Theatre East); O Captain My Captain (UP Theater); Truth Clown (Mottola Theatre Project); With You (EndTimes Productions/La Petite Morgue); True Nails (Washington DC’s Source Festival); and AfterLife (co-written with Candy Simmons; RedEye in Minneapolis, following a two-year tour across the US
and Canada).
In addition, Chris’s work’s been produced and developed with: Circle East Theater Company (formerly the Circle Repertory Lab), The NY International Fringe Festival, The Management, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Live Girls! Theater (Seattle), Theater Catalyst (Philadelphia), The Asylum Theatre (Las Vegas), The Rogue Valley Plays Festival (Ashland, OR), Emerging Artists Theatre, Collective:Unconscious, The 92nd Street Y, The Director’s Company, UP Theater Company, and The Neighborhood Playhouse.
Chris is a member of The Dramatists Guild, The Playwrights’ Center, Circle East Theater Company, SunsetGun Productions (Minneapolis), ‘Wright On! Playwrights Group, and Packawallop Productions’ Pack. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (Playwrights Horizons/Experimental Theater Wing), and studied with Maria Irene Fornes, Mac Wellman, and Jeffrey M. Jones in the Flea Theater’s ‘Pataphysics Workshops.
As an actor, Chris has appeared on Broadway, Off-Off-, regionally, and in film/TV. He’s originally from Allentown, PA, and lives in New York City. Every ten years he hikes across Spain.
Chris is especially interested in creating work for nontraditional spaces: site-specifically, his plays have been staged everywhere from boats to bars to the rooftop pool of a Holiday Inn.
My Szymkowicz interview.
