Biography of Anastasia Traina

Writer / Director Michael Imperioli's Studio Dante produced her play From Riverdale to Riverhead during its summer '07 season, with Angelica Torn, Catherine Curtin, Sharon Angela and Bess Rous. They are now in the process of optioning the play to make a feature film. Ana's play In Audela received a reading at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts in London and was directed by George Washington University theatre fellow Allan Wade in the spring of 2005. The play has received readings at the Rattlestick Theatre and Circle East, was work shopped during the 2002 Voice and Vision theatre retreat at Bard College, and also received a workshop production in 2003 at The Culture Project starring Frank Wood, Scott Cohen, Yeardley Smith, and Polly Draper. Awarded Honorable Mention 73rd Writer's Digest Competition. The Dustman has had a workshop production at EST's October fest, 2004. Awarded Honorable Mention 72nd Writer's Digest Competition. In 2002 Circle East also produced Mermaids on the Hudson at the Chasama Theatre and When Heaven and Earth at Manhattan Theatre Source, starring R. E. Rodgers and Linda Larkin. Also produced by Nailing the Kipper Co. at the Zephyr theatre in Los Angeles. Ana has also had productions in such New York City theatres as HERE, The Zipper, The Vital, Expanded Arts, Soho Rep, Primary Stages and The Neighborhood Playhouse. Winny and G, produced by the Love Creek Theater, was a finalist for the Jane Chambers'Awards in 1997 and then published by Heinemann in the 1999 Anthology of Women Playwrights, edited by Tori Harring-Smith. Other plays and monologues are published by Smith & Krauss. From 1999 to 2003, Ana headed the literary department at Circle East and also served as the curator for the Full Circle Festival. She has taught playwriting from 1999-2002 for NYSSA at the Ross School in East Hampton, NY. She serves on the selection committee for the Edna St. Vincent Millay colony and is on the advisory board for the Columbia County Film Festival. Ana attended Columbia University as an invited guest of Eduardo Machado. Ana has been directing theatre for over ten years. She has many notable credits which include: The Mystery in the Middle of an Ordinary Life by Don De Lillo, produced by Urban Empire and Zoetrope, for which she received a glowing review in the New York Times; her own play, The Eternal Pyramid which debuted at the festival titled Hot, Hot, Hot; It's August, produced by the Circle East Repertory Company and at The Culture Project in the Women by Women series, starring Susan Kellerman; Starlight by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld for Naked Angel's Fear Project; A Brother's Kiss by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld at the Intar theater; Pelican by Robert Wray (HERE), produced by Circle East; Listen to the Music and Stop by Nicole Burdette and The Passover Story by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, at The Public Theatre reading series. Ana is currently working on her new play entitled Seagulls on Sullivan Street which will be work shopped at the Labyrinth's Intensive this summer, 2009, and her two new screenplays, entitled, Sparticles and String and The Love Life of Mr. Tom Bottoms. Contact for Anastasia Traina, Britton Rizzio circle of confusion, 8548 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232. t 310 253 7777. f 310 253 9065