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Chris Stezin
Actor, Playwright and Associate Artistic Director,
Charter Theatre
Always busy, Chris Stezin's name seems to pop up in many capacities at many
theaters. He explains that by saying "Theater is what I think I was born to
do and so I do as much of it as I can." He's been doing it here in the
Potomac Region for the past six years. While he maintains a day job, he's
been a busy member of the theater community here, as witness the length of
the list of reviews of his work at the bottom of this page. Most, but not
all, of those reviews are of work at Charter Theater which he calls his
"primary professional commitment." His primary personal commitments
are his
wife, an actress and dancer he met while working in Hershey Park, and their
new daughter born in 2004. |
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Career Highlights: Stezin burst into prominence on the local scene
with his play Hoboken Station, the first of his plays to be produced
by Charter Theatre. It was nominated for the Charles MacArthur Award for
Outstanding New Play in the 2000 Helen Hayes Award Program. He's gone on to
write A Walk Across the Rooftops and contribute one segment to the
multi-author production of Sinking Up
while acting in, designing sets for and directing the scripts of others.
Raised in New Jersey and
South Carolina, Stezin got involved in theater at Clemson University. The
first time he saw his work produced on stage was at Clemson where Fallen to
Earth was produced in 1996. Upon graduation he headed, as so many do, to
New York to seek his fame and fortune. But a stop on the way was at The
Shenandoah International Playwrights Retreat near Staunton, VA, where he met
and worked with a number of DC based artists including Lee Mikeska Gardner
and David Jackson.
After a year "knocking on
doors and waiting on tables" he took a job at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.
"It was kind of an acting job," he says. "We did a 'show' on the Hershey
Trolley that was half show/half tour guide." He met the actress/dancer who
would be his wife at Hershey Park and they relocated to the Potomac area
which many of the people he came to know at repeated playwright retreats in
Staunton told him was a welcoming and vibrant theater community.
After the initial
experience with Hoboken Station, Stezin became increasingly active in
the work of Charter and he became the artistic associate in 2000. Most of
his work on paper and on stage has been with Charter but he has also
performed at the Folger, the Olney Theater Center, Washington Shakespeare
Company and the Washington Stage Guild. In 2003 he responded to an
advertisement for writers to draft and edit captions for the hearing
impaired. His day job now, which provides the all important health insurance
for new father Stezin, is writing captions for programs on network
television, ESPN, DVD releases, and educational and training videos.
Potomac Stages reviews of Chris
Stezin's work as of 6-7-04:
As a playwright:
What Dogs Do - Charter Theatre
Sinking
Up - Project Y Theatre Company
A Walk Across the Rooftops
- Washington Shakespeare Company
As an actor:
The Early
Miracle - Charter Theatre
Circumference of a Squirrel - Charter Theatre
What Dogs Do - Charter Theatre
Church of
the Open Mind - Charter Theatre
Buried Child - Fountainhead Theatre
A Lie
of the Mind - Fountainhead Theatre
As a set designer
Watching
Left - Charter Theatre
The Taste
of Fire - Charter Theatre
Poe and All
That Jazz - Charter Theatre
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