Writer-performer Stacie Chaiken’s solo play The Dig, death, Genesis + the double helix, set in the Middle East, received the 2017 Los Angeles Stage Raw Theatre Award for Solo Performance. Other plays include Looking for Louie, about immigrant family secrets, and What She Left, based on WWII Partisan narratives.
Recent, and ongoing: Saint Vibiana Pray4US, in which Chaiken implores the intervention of the patron saint of Los Angeles, about whom little is known, is the first installment of a large-scale, site-specific performance project about Downtown LA, called Porciuncula (Little Portion). The second installment, Don't Flinch, explores the history of the Main Street Boxing Gym. Both pieces premiered at Son of Semele Ensemble's Solo Creation Festival, in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Chaiken's devised-theatre work includes The Home Project: El Projecto Mi Tierra with immigrant residents of South LA (LA Department of Cultural Affairs Artist in Residence), and Getting Off the Fence, at Gateways Beit T’Shuvah, a residential treatment center for addicts. Devised work with Fringe Benefits includes 90210 Goes Queer/Family Dinner, with LGBTQ youth; The Golden Rule, with interfaith youth; and Clothes Minded/The True Mw, with Orthodox women in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
From 2013 to 2014, Chaiken served as International Creative Director of Kwibuka, the 20th commemoration of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where she designed and produced national events, including the Flame Tour, that comprised the commemoration. In Kigali, she also facilitated story workshops with student survivors.
A Fulbright Senior Specialist in the field of Performance and Story, she was formerly on the performance faculty of the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts.
She currently facilitates the Los Angeles-based What's the Story? workshop for writers and performers making powerful stuff, based on personal story, and teaches Master Classes in performance and autobiographical story-making, all over the place. She also serves as Story Consultant and facilitates Story Workshops for Fellows of New Ground: a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, whose work is based on the premise that conflict faced head-on is an open door to building relationship.
She is an Artist-Fellow of the 2018-2019 Helix Project and, for both 2019 and 2020, has been designated a Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Trailblazer.
Chaiken holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Religion from the University of Minnesota, a Master of the Arts degree in Dramatic Art from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.
Recent, and ongoing: Saint Vibiana Pray4US, in which Chaiken implores the intervention of the patron saint of Los Angeles, about whom little is known, is the first installment of a large-scale, site-specific performance project about Downtown LA, called Porciuncula (Little Portion). The second installment, Don't Flinch, explores the history of the Main Street Boxing Gym. Both pieces premiered at Son of Semele Ensemble's Solo Creation Festival, in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Chaiken's devised-theatre work includes The Home Project: El Projecto Mi Tierra with immigrant residents of South LA (LA Department of Cultural Affairs Artist in Residence), and Getting Off the Fence, at Gateways Beit T’Shuvah, a residential treatment center for addicts. Devised work with Fringe Benefits includes 90210 Goes Queer/Family Dinner, with LGBTQ youth; The Golden Rule, with interfaith youth; and Clothes Minded/The True Mw, with Orthodox women in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
From 2013 to 2014, Chaiken served as International Creative Director of Kwibuka, the 20th commemoration of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where she designed and produced national events, including the Flame Tour, that comprised the commemoration. In Kigali, she also facilitated story workshops with student survivors.
A Fulbright Senior Specialist in the field of Performance and Story, she was formerly on the performance faculty of the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts.
She currently facilitates the Los Angeles-based What's the Story? workshop for writers and performers making powerful stuff, based on personal story, and teaches Master Classes in performance and autobiographical story-making, all over the place. She also serves as Story Consultant and facilitates Story Workshops for Fellows of New Ground: a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, whose work is based on the premise that conflict faced head-on is an open door to building relationship.
She is an Artist-Fellow of the 2018-2019 Helix Project and, for both 2019 and 2020, has been designated a Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Trailblazer.
Chaiken holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Religion from the University of Minnesota, a Master of the Arts degree in Dramatic Art from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.
Stacie is grateful for the generous support of the Yiddishkayt Wallis Annenberg Helix Project, Center for Cultural Innovation, the Durfee Foundation; the Fulbright Foundation; University of Southern California Visions & Voices program; the California Arts Council; Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; the USC Arts Initiative; Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity; and the Hebrew Union College Artist in Residency program.
Rae Luskin's November 2015 interview
for Creative Activists project.
for Creative Activists project.
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