Anna Langman, MFA
Playwright · Poet · Theatre Artist
Anna Langman (she/her) is a graduate of Brooklyn College’s Playwriting MFA program, having graduated from Connecticut College with a BA in English and Theatre with a concentration in playwriting in 2018. She is a queer, ace theatre artist with invisible disabilities. Her work seeks to break the way we think about theatre and about life, while remaining inclusive to the asexual community. Her plays have had online publications, staged readings and productions regionally and internationally, including at the Independent International Award for Improper Dramaturgy, where her play Beauteous Ganymede tied for first place, winning the distinction of “a play no one will ever agree to stage.” She can be found in Smith & Kraus’s collection, “WE/US: Monologues for the Gender Minority.” During quarantine, she created short plays in formats such as Zoom, Twitch, Instagram, and Minecraft. Anna is also a prolific sonnetrix and an avid Shakespearean, who attended the 2018 Summer Training Institute at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. She is featured on the inaugural episode of the podcast Such Stuff as Scenes are Made On, analyzing Hamlet. Samples of her poetry can be found at @shakespeareslilsis on Instagram, and her plays can be read on the New Play Exchange.
Artistic Statement
I make art in order to create what is lacking in real life, and thereby to fulfill and enrich the emotional lives of both artists and audience members. My work and practice are unique in their use of old forms for new functions, and in their synthesis of genres and styles; I draw on theatrical movements including Absurdism, Surrealism, French Farce, Expressionism, modern and contemporary dark comedy, the Classics, and most importantly, the English Renaissance. As a fervent Shakespeare scholar, my ultimate purpose in my studies is to take what I can learn from those older works about use of language, character, story, dramatic and literary conventions and innovations, and more, and use those tools to create new dramatic works. Language is my sharpest tool for artistry, and is the foundation and the impetus for the elements of the play that follow. When it comes to literary devices, my inspirations and choices come from an informed place, but they are never mere repetitions of the past.
My playwriting is simultaneously escapist and socially conscious; I do not aim to preach, but my writing does portray versions of real-world problems alongside their potential solutions and ideals, in order to lead by example. This often presents itself subtly, by different means in each play; however, the most personal and abundant example of this lies in the sexuality of my characters; my stories are nearly always complete without the addition of romance or sex, such that any asexual, aromantic, and sexually and romantically unexperienced audience members who might be present can be fully invited into the journey of the play without feeling excluded or alienated. On a more purely artistic level, I strive to enable the performers and audience to disappear into an experience separate from their everyday lives. As theatre artists, we get to build fantastical realms, travel to them, and live within them; this is why theatre is the closest thing in the world to magic, and I value its power as such.