Diana Burbano

Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant, is a  playwright, an Equity actor, and a teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble.

Diana’s play Ghosts of Bogota, won the Nu Voices festival at Actors Theatre of Charlotte in 2019. Ghosts was commissioned and debuted at Alter Theater in the Bay Area in Feb 2020. Sapience, was a Playground-SF 2020, Winner and was featured at Latinx Theatre Festival, San Diego Rep 2020. Fabulous Monsters, a Kilroys selection was to premiere at Playwrights Arena in 2020 (postponed).

Other plays:
Policarpa, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Brown Swan lab 2017, Drama League Rough Draft series May 2017, Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Award 2017, Parsnip Ship 2017.

Picture me Rollin 35th William Inge Festival, Inkfest/2cents, Silueta, (about Ana Mendieta), with Tom and Chris Shelton, Listen to the play at play4keeps.org/play/silueta/

Caliban’s Island (TYA) 2017 Headwaters New Play Festival at Creede Repertory.(Published by YouthPLAYS).

The short piece Linda was written for the 365 Women a Year project and has been featured in more that 20 festivals over the last year, including Center Theatre Group’s community library series.

Diana recently played Amalia in Jose Cruz Gonzales' American Mariachi at South Coast Repertory and Arizona Theatre Company, and Marisela in La Ruta at Artists Repertory. You can also see her as Viv the Punk in the cult musical Isle of Lesbos.

She was in Center Theatre Group’s 2018-19 Writers Workshop cohort and is in the Geffen’s Writers Lab in 20-21. She has worked on projects with South Coast Repertory, Artists Repertory Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble and Center Theatre Group and Livermore Shakespeare Festival.

She is the current Dramatists Guild Rep for Southern California. www.dianaburbano.com

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
http://dianaburbano.com/index.html
FB: diana.burbano
TW: @loladiana
IG: @ladianaburbano

MORE ABOUT ME
I am a Colombian immigrant writer. I approach my work from both my worlds; as an American, because I was raised here, as a Colombian because that is my heritage. However, I don’t feel like I fully belong in either place. it would be easy to pigeonhole me as a writer of Magical Realism, but that is a label I am not eager to embrace. My work is closer to nightmare magic science fiction. My plays feature strong female protagonists and antagonists, and I world build from a feminine, Latinx, punk POV.
I am a self-taught playwright. I have learning disabilities. I have been fortunate enough to work closely with playwright peers at Center Theatre Group, the Drama League, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Dramaturgia Mexicana. I have a thirst for learning and working with writers, who work from an entirely different point of view.

I come at writing not from an academic world, but from the trenches of the acting community. That isn’t unusual for Latinx writers. For Female Latinx writers, it is, in fact, the norm. I started writing for myself, but soon discovered that my passion, what I feel moved to do as a playwright, is writing for other Latinx women. Watching in rehearsal as actresses bloom into characters where they can be powerful, unapologetic, flawed, and complex is a great joy. After readings, I can’t tell you how many times women have come to me and said, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me something exciting and challenging to act.”

I am driven to give theatrical voice to the Latinx community. I have spent so many years listening to non-Latinx writers trying to tell our stories, often getting them wrong, or reducing us to one dimensional characters. My work fills a very specific void.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Commissions for Livermore Shakespeare Theatre and Alter Theater, as well as "Beheading Columbus" for the Geffen.

KEYWORDS
latinx, latine, BIPOC