Stănescu has written: •
Aliens with Extraordinary Skills – Commissioned and produced by Women's Project, starring
Jessica Pimentel (
Orange is the New Black), New York; Teatro La Capilla, Mexico City; Teatrul Odeon, Bucharest, etc. A dark comedy about a clown from the "unhappiest country in the world,"
Moldova, who pins her hopes on a US work visa. Chased by
Homeland Security, a deportation letter deflates her enthusiasm and a pair of spike heels might be all it takes to burst her
American Dream. Based on true stories of immigration explored and fictionalized by a playwright trying to understand her own story. Mexican version: Immigrantes con Abilidades Extraordinaries. Romanian version as performed at Odeon: Viza de Clown. •
Ants – Produced by
New Jersey Repertory Company; developed with The New Group. Two immigrant sisters struggle to make ends meet as they attempt to capture a piece of the American dream. •
Aurolac Blues – Produced at HERE Arts Center, New York, etc. Two
Roma ("Gypsy") street-kids, high on
Aurolac (a silver-paint that's huffed from plastic bags), dream of an America they know from movies and McDonalds leftovers. •
Bee Trapped Inside a Window – Commissioned and produced by Civic Ensemble. Explores modern-day slavery's effect on the lives of three women of different backgrounds and ethnicities in the leafy suburbs of
Connecticut. •
For a Barbarian Woman – Commissioned and developed by Long Wharf Theatre, Connecticut; produced by Ensemble Studio Theatre & Fordham University. This play interweaves a present-day love story between a Romanian interpreter and an American colonel from the
NATO base in
Constanța (a seaside resort in Romania, formerly the ancient city of Tomis, where Roman poet
Ovid spent his exile)and a fictional relationship between Ovid and a Barbarian woman.
Black Sea and their muses have witnessed and tell both stories. •
Gun Hill – Developed at WP Theater, New York; Kitchen Theatre, Ithaca. A black English teacher riskily attempts to convince her troubled white student to abandon the idea of a shooting spree at their high school. Will she succeed? •
Hurt – Published in Best Short American Plays 2012-2013 by Applauses; produced by Manhattan Theatre Festival; FLEFF/Cinemapolis, Ithaca, New York. A man is ready to go on a shooting spree. Are the two women in his life going to stop him? • ''Lenin's Shoe'' – Produced (barebones) by The Lark; NYU MFA in Dramatic Writing thesis. The wheelchair-using son of a
Russian mafioso plans to kill his father – now owner of a restaurant in
Queens. He comments on reality by immersing himself into a world of blogs, the only place he can be himself. An intimate look into the world of East European immigrants living in New York after the fall of the Iron Curtain and their struggle to redefine the word ‘home.’ •
The Others – Conceived/directed by Saviana and developed with Ithaca College students.
The Others is a piece about micro-aggressions on student campuses. 2016 production starred then-IC student,
Jharrel Jerome (
Moonlight,
This is Us) •
Waxing West (A Hairy-Tale in Four Seasons) – Winner of New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-length Script; produced by East Coast Artists at La MaMa theatre in New York. A Romanian cosmetologist arrives in the United States as the soon-to-be bride to a sexually repressed computer engineer. As she adjusts to her new life with him in the land of dreams,
Elena and
Nicolae Ceaușescu, former Dictator-and-Wife of Romania, but now
vampires, haunt her days and nights. This comic yet socially and politically relevant drama journeys between Romania and New York, between past and present, and the American Dream and American nightmare. •
What Happens Next – Commissioned and produced by The Cherry Artspace. Two women in a white room are prisoners of routine and imagination. But are they both human? Maybe one is a robot, or clone, or hologram, or ghost....”Black Mirror” meets Waiting for Godot in this futuristic drama. •
White Embers – Samuel French OOB Winner; produced at Theatre Row, New York; Hudson Theatre, Los Angeles; Dramalabbet, Stockholm, etc. A woman from the East confronts a woman from the West. A US couple goes to Bechnya (a fictional country torn by wars) to adopt a child. The past and the present collide and intersect in unexpected ways. •
Unicorn Girl – Commissioned and produced by the
Hangar Theatre,
Ithaca, New York. When an 8-year-old gets bullied at school for having two dads, she sets out on a fantastical journey to end bullying and encourage listening. Her stuffed unicorn, Connie, joins her on this journey of discovery, during which she meets people-like animals, animal-like people, and the President. •
Useless – Produced by IRT, New York. A dark humored drama about love, dreams and human trafficking. It investigates the relationship between a couple of Eastern European immigrants involved in kidney trafficking. The play intersperses heightened realistic scenes with dreams and nightmares that offer a glimpse into the characters’ inner lives and alternate realities. •
Zebra 2.0 – Commissioned by Transforma Inc. for the Science in Theatre Festival in Manhattan. An
undocumented woman, working as a night-shift janitor at a Wildlife preservation/tracking company in the US, develops an uncanny friendship with the main Artificial Intelligence. == Poetry ==