Works written by Christopher Oscar Peña:
A CAUTIONARY TAIL
ALONE ABOVE A RAGING SEA
AWESTRUCK
HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN SON
ICARUS BURNS
LOS FELIZ
MALCRIADOS
OUR ORANGE SKY
THE STRANGERS
TINY PEOPLE
Synopses:
How to Make an American Son – A “Model Immigrant” and business mogul, Honduran-born Mando’s cleaning empire is bracing for a downturn at the exact same moment when he must rein in his over-privileged American son Orlando. In the wake of a personal crisis, Orlando suddenly finds himself responsible for the fate of a treasured worker and the future of his father’s entire enterprise. What happens when the promise of the American Dream collides with the reality of immigration and family? A moving new coming-of-age comedy about the complexities of privilege, citizenship, sexual identity, and the most complex relationship of all: family.
The Strangers – An Our Town for the 21st Century- the strangers dives into love, identity, and belonging in a changing America. Secrets surface and realities collide in this daring look at what “home” really means today. cris returns to a place he used to call home-to work on a production of an old play and then falls in love as the end of the world draws near. A group of young people get together to figure out if this is in fact, our town and whether love in the face of near is still worth fighting for.
A Cautionary Tail – First generation Chinese-Americans growing up in New York City, siblings Vivienne and Luke confront their confused tangle of family, their diverse array of friends, and their rampant sexuality. In our digital age, how can they navigate the traditional expectations of their mother with their American culture of individuality?
Los Feliz – Set between Los Angeles and the fantasies it sells, Los Feliz is a sharp, funny, and deeply personal play about art, race, and the cost of being seen. When a rising filmmaker’s project bends to studio pressure, his collaborator and closest friend challenges what success really means.
Alone Above a Raging Sea – alone above a raging sea is about a man who misses his flight home for Christmas and is left to pursue a connection with a total stranger over the holidays, while across the country, his parents contend with announcing their impending divorce.
Bio:
christopher oscar peña is a story-teller originally from California, now splitting his time between New York and LA.
As a playwright, the Clarence Brown Theatre commissioned and produced the world premiere of his play The Strangers. The play recently closed in San Diego, California to critical acclaim in a production staged by Chalk Circle Collective. In New York, the Flea Theatre produced the world premiere of his play a cautionary tail. Most recently, he collaborated with actress Solea Pfeiffer on her solo show You Are Here, which was commissioned by Audible, and played to sold out acclaim at the Minetta Lane Theatre off-broadway, and is now available for download on Audible. After having its world premiere at Arizona Theatre Company, his play how to make an American Son opened in North Carolina at Common Thread Theatre Collective, and had its west coast premiere at Profile Theatre in Portland, Oregon. That season, titled “The American Generation” also included the world premiere of his Sundance developed play awe/struck, and the world premiere of his Profile commission Our Orange Sky. Upcoming, how to make an American Son will have its fourth production when it opens in San Francisco at New Conservatory Theatre Center in April 2026.
He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, and his work has been developed or commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, the Goodman Theater, Public Theater, Two River Theater, INTAR, Ontological Hysteric Incubator, Playwrights Realm, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Old Vic, Orchard Project, Naked Angels, and New York Theatre Workshop, among many others. A two-time Sundance Institute Theater Fellow, he has also held fellowships with the Lark Play Development Center, was a recipient of the Latino Playwrights Award from the Kennedy Center, an Emerging Artist Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, and was a part of the US/UK Exchange (Old Vic New Voices). He was named one of “The 1st Annual Future Broadway Power List” by Backstage, has been published by Methuen, No Passport Press and Smith and Krauss, and recently completed his nine-year residency with New Dramatists. He has an extensive relationship with the 24-Hour plays, having written for their plays on Broadway, their musical benefits, their gala in LA, and written several viral monologues for Bonnie Milligan, Cory Michael Smith, John Gallagher Jr., Jon Rua, Bill Heck, Raviv Ullman, Evan Jonigkeit, and many more. His first viral monologue with frequent collaborator Hugh Dancy was forever memorialized as a cartoon in the New Yorker. He is now on the board of the 24 Hour Plays and is an Artistic Trustee on the board of Diversionary Theatre in San Diego and The Debt Gala in New York. He has taught at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts – Playwrights Horizons Theatre School. He is currently working on commissions from IAMA Theatre and Center Theatre Group. With composer Zoe Sarnak and Emmy winning choreographer Josh Bergasse, he is currently working on his first musical, The Invisible Line. His plays how to make an American Son, the strangers, and a cautionary tail are collected together for the first time, in christopher oscar peña: Three Plays published by Methuen Press.
In television, he was a writer on the Golden Globe nominated debut season of the CW show Jane the Virgin, the critically acclaimed HBO show Insecure (in which he also appeared as the character Gary), as well as the Starz show Sweetbitter, Motherland: Fort Salem on Freeform, and the ABC / Hulu series Promised Land. He produced the BET+ holiday film A Jenkins Family Christmas and co-wrote the hit BET+ holiday film The Cookoff. He has developed television series with HBO, Netflix, Apple +, Freeform and ABC. He received his B.A. from U.C. Santa Barbara and his M.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.