Personal site: https://www.catalinaflorescu.com/ Short bio: 七転び八起きBorn on a Sunday in March, one day after the International Women’s Day, she teases that she did not want to let God take a break and credits her mother for that bold move while she laughs wholeheartedly to pay tribute to her father’s witty sense of humor. Born in communist Romania, Cătălina came to the States for a chance at a more expansive exploratory life. She is an immigrant cis woman and a working mom, who went through the process of being naturalized, while at the same time she has proudly maintained her Balkan accent and roots. Cătălina Florina Florescu earned her Bachelor’s Degree from U of Bucharest, Romanian Literature (major), American Literature (minor); she holds a Master’s Degree and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Purdue U (specializations: Comparative Theatre & Medical Humanities). At Pace University in New York City she teaches undergraduate learning community, honors courses in literature, cultural studies, cinema, theater, and writing. At Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken she teaches the art of conversation and writing to graduate international students. At Jersey City Theater Center she is the curator for new play festival, an event where she offers newcomers as well as veteran playwrights from nearby communities and the world a platform to showcase one of their new plays on themes of global interest such as healing, resilience, love, care, responsibility, and climate change. Dr. Florescu has published 10 books, some analytical, other creative, still others, hybrid. Her plays have been professionally read and/or performed in California, New York, New Jersey, Alaska, Delaware, and Virginia (in the US), London and Birmingham (in England), and Bucharest, Iaşi, and Constanţa (in Romania). She has collaborated with LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Jersey City Theater Center, The Immigrants’ Theater Project, various Romanian Cultural Institutes (in New York, Berlin, Vienna, and London), The Players’ Theater in New York, The International Center for Women Playwrights, “Women in Theater series” from Theater Y, Falconworks Theater Company, The Shawnee Playwrights, The Main Theater in Santa Clarita, Theater in Crisis, Barons Court Theater, The Finnish Cultural Institute in London, Centrul Multifuncţional Educativ pentru Tineret “Jean Constantin,” Transforma Theater, Teatrul Naţional Iaşi, UnTeatru from Bucharest, AREAL: Spaţiu de Dezvoltare Coregrafică, Casa Avramide, and Muzeul Naţional al Literaturii Române. Dr. Florescu collaborated with interdisciplinary scholars, (drama) therapists, (former) cancer patients, LGBTQ actors and writers, political activists, immigrants, veterans, World Health Organization representatives, and various local and international artists. Her work has been promoted on Romania’s National TV and radio stations, Radio France International, Broadway World, StageBiz, Goethe Institut, Revista Scena, Elle Romania, The Theatre Times, LiterNet, etc. Her plays are part of the Library of Congress Collection and Drama Book Shop. Her play "Mia" (from Staging Breast Cancer Trilogy) had its world premiere at HERE: Arts Center this fall in New York City. The play is part of the world’s first breast cancer trilogy: https://lccn.loc.gov/2021392152. "Suicidal Dog and Laika" is the most watched play on the Digital Stage Platform of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York. "Femeia care tot uita sa se nasca" was a finalist for Play of the Year Award organized by UNITER, Romania. The same play was staged read at the National Theatre in Iasi, Romania. Her play "Am aflat … acum" won the second prize during the Annual Comedy Contest organized by Teatrul de Comedie from Bucharest. "Chalk/La tiza" was staged read during Valdez Last Frontier Theatre Conference. "Woman: A Choreopoem" had its London debut at Barons Court Theatre. "Man on the Moon," her radio play, was part of Fresh Fruit Festival and it can be listened online. The same play was part of New York S.P.O.T Festival. "In Her Head, in the Kitchen" was part of the Monologue Series Women in Theatre organized by Theatre Y Project. "Home" was part of The Ripped Festival and can be read online. "Sans Me" is Catalina’s first collaboration with a neuroscientist, and it debuted in New York during the Science in Theater Festival. "Cancer, Choreographed" will have its double premiere at Arcub in Bucharest, Romania, and at the Romanian Cultural Institute in NYC and JCTC, respectively. She published her first volume of three plays bilingually, Teatru (Romanian) and The Rebelled Plays (English). She recently published Staging Breast Cancer Trilogy (NoPassport Press), and Borderless Thalia: A Multilingual Comedic, Pandemic Collection (Solis Press). She is currently working on a book under contract: Female Playwrights as Applied Intersectionality in Contemporary Romanian Theater (Routledge).She had book launches at Columbia University, New York Public Library, United States Embassy in Bucharest, Casa Avramide, Carturesti Carusel, etc. She gave invited talks at Harvard University, Sorbonne Université, James Madison University, The Seminary Co-Op Chicago, Bradley University, etc. As a graduate student, she won grants to finish her innovative dissertation in Medical Humanities, a field at that time non-existent at her alma mater: “The Acquisition of the Body’s Language(s): An Interdisciplinary Study in Literature, Art, and Bioethics” and “Carved in the Flesh: Discourses of Spatiality and the Bioethics of Medicine,” respectively. Dr. Florescu won grants to complete projects with students at Pace on issues related to disability and theater, music and education, the arts and medicine, war and loss, as well as to complete plays (“Snowdrops and Chlorine” and “Mia”). She created new courses at the intersection between theater and healing: “21st c Dramatic Texts,” “Women’s Theater of Resistance,” “Worlds in Theater,” etc. She won awards for excellence in teaching and has been funded to invite outside speakers so that academia and real life are part of a continuum of shared respectful ideals. Since she has been slowly drifting away from academic writing, nowadays her main theatrical objective is to continue to listen to stories and transfer them dramatically until theater becomes accessible to everybody. Her ultimate pedagogical goal is to free academia from all its toxic mentalities and obsession for status quo. She believes that her love for and solid practice of theater will help her achieve that. She dedicates her plays and work to her late parents and maternal grandma, as well as to her beautiful son, M.While commuting to work, she is reminded she is, as she should be, a tourist. Obviously, she never truly exits this stage, which over the years has covered her identity like a renewable skin. Always a big dreamer, she loses herself in the crowd, among real tourists who are, at any second, ready to photograph the Statue of Liberty; The Freedom Tower; The Empire State Building; the Brooklyn Bridge; and so many other NY iconic buildings/places that are situated on the land of the Lenape People. It is in the flickering reflective surface of the Hudson River that she remembers viscerally her Danube, Tulcea, entire past (in Romania) -- and she is happy to levitate disregarding any barriers and borders. Faptul că m-am născut într-o zi de duminică spune totul despre mine: eman căldura. And yet, Icarus, watch out! Read more about this authorRead less about this author