Kristiana Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, and educator living and working in Chicago. She has been featured on Power 92, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, WGN Radio, and WZRD. Kristiana has rocked the mic at some of the Midwest's top venues including the Park West, the Metro, the Star Plaza Theater, the Aragon, Victory Gardens Theater, Darkroom, Subterranean, the Funky Buddha Lounge, as well as venues across the nation and abroad. Kristiana has shared stages with highly acclaimed writers Marc Smith, the creator of the worldwide 'poetry slam' phenomenon, Haki Madhubuti, Patricia Smith, Sonia Sanchez, Malik Yusef, Kevin Coval, Tara Betts, and has opened for De La Soul, Grammy-nominated band Ozomatli and internationally-acclaimed comedian Damon Williams.
Kristiana has served as an adjunct English and Humanities professor at Chicago State University, Malcolm X College, and Tribeca Flashpoint Academy. She is proud to have been nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize for her poem "severance" in Organs of Vision and Speech, as well as see her work anthologized in Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2010 and Haven Books' Not a Muse collection. Kristiana's work is also featured in Saul Williams' anthology, Chorus: A Literary (Re)Mixtape, released by MTV Publishing in Summer 2012. Other recent publications include Pank, African American Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and the Logan Square Literary Review, among several other online and print journals. Kristiana is also an Assistant Editor for Muzzle, an online literary magazine.
Kristiana is an Artistic Associate at Teatro Luna, Chicago's all-Latina theater company. She acts in its touring cast and is a member of the writing ensemble for original devised work. She appeared in Teatro Luna's season 11 production of Crossed: How One Trip to Arizona Flipped Our Script and played a key role in the writing and development of play. In Fall 2011, Kristiana also appeared in Coya Paz's production of The Americans, which debuted as the inaugural performance of the Logan Square Arts Center.
Kristiana's short plays have appeared in Rebel Theater's Sunday Reading Series in New York, American Theater Company's The Silver Project, Teatro Luna's 10 x 10 Festival in conjunction with the Goodman's Latino Theater Festival, Dramatist Personae's Artist Gumbo series and Simple Theater's K.I.S.S. festival. Her most recent full-length project one week in spring was a finalist for Victory Gardens' Ignition festival and had its first full staged reading in TL's Lunadas Series in October 2010. Her first play but i cd only whisper was the 2nd place winner of the 2008 Theodore Ward Playwriting contest and was workshopped at the Lincoln Center's Director's Lab in New York. Her play the darkest pit had its world premiere at the Prop Thtr in 2009. She is an MFA graduate from the School of the Art Institute and has been seen on HBO's Def Poetry Jam.
In 2005, Kristiana released her independently produced spoken word album entitled Who Haunts Eden and was featured on HBO's fifth season of Def Poetry Jam. In addition to recording, publishing, and performing, Kristiana also spends some time teaching performance poetry, drama, and other forms of creative writing at inner-city schools to talented youth ages 6 - 18. Kristiana holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the School of the Art Institute Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature/Creative Writing from the University of Chicago. She believes in the power of art as an educational tool and is committed to arts integration as a way to reinvigorate the learning experience, build social awareness, and provoke critical analysis of the world in which we live.
view kristiana colón's CV
Kristiana has served as an adjunct English and Humanities professor at Chicago State University, Malcolm X College, and Tribeca Flashpoint Academy. She is proud to have been nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize for her poem "severance" in Organs of Vision and Speech, as well as see her work anthologized in Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2010 and Haven Books' Not a Muse collection. Kristiana's work is also featured in Saul Williams' anthology, Chorus: A Literary (Re)Mixtape, released by MTV Publishing in Summer 2012. Other recent publications include Pank, African American Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and the Logan Square Literary Review, among several other online and print journals. Kristiana is also an Assistant Editor for Muzzle, an online literary magazine.
Kristiana is an Artistic Associate at Teatro Luna, Chicago's all-Latina theater company. She acts in its touring cast and is a member of the writing ensemble for original devised work. She appeared in Teatro Luna's season 11 production of Crossed: How One Trip to Arizona Flipped Our Script and played a key role in the writing and development of play. In Fall 2011, Kristiana also appeared in Coya Paz's production of The Americans, which debuted as the inaugural performance of the Logan Square Arts Center.
Kristiana's short plays have appeared in Rebel Theater's Sunday Reading Series in New York, American Theater Company's The Silver Project, Teatro Luna's 10 x 10 Festival in conjunction with the Goodman's Latino Theater Festival, Dramatist Personae's Artist Gumbo series and Simple Theater's K.I.S.S. festival. Her most recent full-length project one week in spring was a finalist for Victory Gardens' Ignition festival and had its first full staged reading in TL's Lunadas Series in October 2010. Her first play but i cd only whisper was the 2nd place winner of the 2008 Theodore Ward Playwriting contest and was workshopped at the Lincoln Center's Director's Lab in New York. Her play the darkest pit had its world premiere at the Prop Thtr in 2009. She is an MFA graduate from the School of the Art Institute and has been seen on HBO's Def Poetry Jam.
In 2005, Kristiana released her independently produced spoken word album entitled Who Haunts Eden and was featured on HBO's fifth season of Def Poetry Jam. In addition to recording, publishing, and performing, Kristiana also spends some time teaching performance poetry, drama, and other forms of creative writing at inner-city schools to talented youth ages 6 - 18. Kristiana holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the School of the Art Institute Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature/Creative Writing from the University of Chicago. She believes in the power of art as an educational tool and is committed to arts integration as a way to reinvigorate the learning experience, build social awareness, and provoke critical analysis of the world in which we live.
view kristiana colón's CV
