Theatre is the one area, aside from religion, where people are presented with stories; they can hear them, they can see vicariously what can happen. They have a conversation with what’s happening with their own experience, and they actually can change . . .making a new commitment to advocacy and that is so beautiful.
Human rights and civil rights will be realized only when we fully hear the voices, ideas and creative concepts of womxn over 40, whose perspectives have long been marginalized and stifled. ~ Cindy Cooper
Cynthia L. Cooper (Cindy to most people) is an award-winning playwright, journalist, author and activist. She became a playwright to use the power of the stage to address topics and issues that were flattened and ignored by popular media. Her plays are united by a passion for socially relevant topics, stylized staging and a dramatic-comedic mix.
Her plays (15 full length, 35 short) include Silence Not, A Love Story and At the Train Station in Munich about a woman who resisted the rise of the Nazis; Heaven Scent about a gay couple that encounters prejudice when they seek to adopt; Stones of Tiananmen, about Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Lui Xiaobo, his artist-wife and the fight for freedom of speech, and Running on Glass and How She Played the Game about overlooked women in sports, and All Databases Are Incomplete about the ordinariness and invisibility of intimate partner violence
Stories of asylum seekers and asylum helpers — of the search for safety and the offer of sanctuary — are revealed in unfolding monologues in I Was A Stranger Too, sharing the hopes that can emerge from a single act of caring and concern.
A woman, propelled by the memory of her mother’s rescue from the Holocaust, is drawn to help asylum seekers in the U.S. As she attempts to navigate the asylum system, she encounters a rich mosaic of people who are fleeing persecution, and others determined to welcome them.Drawn from dozens of interviews with people in Minnesota and elsewhere, the play takes audience members beyond stereotypes to the power and capacity of the human spirit. I Was A Stranger Too tells the story of hope that can arise amid chaos, difficulty and trauma.
With a deep belief in the transformational power of theater to open hearts and minds, over 20 years ago, she founded ReproFreedomArts.org (formerly Words of Choice), which produces creative works about reproductive health, freedom, rights and justice, and has taken performances live to 20 states, livestreamed to tens-of-thousands of viewers, and does walking tours on reproductive freedom in New York City.
A two-time Jerome Fellow, Cindy’s plays have been seen in New York at Primary Stages, The Women’s Project, Wings, Lincoln Center Clark Studio, Town Hall, Anne Frank Center USA, EST New Works, Center for Jewish History, WOW Café, Culture Project, Art and Work Ensemble, and more, as well as in Chicago, Minneapolis, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, Reno, LA, Richmond, Cape Cod, San Francisco, Florida, Oregon, Alabama, Maryland, Texas, Montreal, Budapest, Jerusalem, Helsinki and London.
Cindy’s plays are in 17 publications, and she has won awards from Pen & Brush, Samuel French Play Festival, Malibu International Playwriting Festival, Nantucket Theatre Festival, City of Providence, Quixote Foundation and others.
Cindy is one of four artistic instigators for Statuefest: Put A Woman On A Pedestal, which uses theater to advocate for more monuments honoring women; participates yearly in ‘Women, Theatre and the Holocaust,’ and spends time as an activist, in and out of theater, advocating for parity, equality and justice.
Websites:
https://strangertoo.weebly.com/
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/cyncooperwriter/
@cyncooperwrtr FB and Insta
@ChoiceTheater Twitter
@reprofreedomarts Insta
@strangertooplay Insta
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