Kristin Idaszak
Kristin Idaszak (she/her) is a playwright, essayist, and dramaturg whose recent work focuses on the climate crisis, gender, and disability. She is a two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow. Her play Second Skin received the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Award and Jean Kennedy Smith Award, and her play Another Jungle was a Relentless Award Honorable Mention. She was the Shank Playwriting Fellow at the Goodman Theatre and a member of the Goodman Playwrights Unit. She has received commissions from EST/The Sloan Foundation, Cleveland Play House, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, TimeLine Theatre, and others. She was the Kennedy Center Fellow at Sundance Theatre Lab.
Her work has been seen at or developed through the Goodman Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, La Jolla Playhouse’s WoW Festival, The State Theatre of Turkey (Ankara), The Drama League, Ensemble Studio Theatre, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Pasadena Playhouse, the Williamstown Theatre Festival Directing Studio, Circle X, Renaissance Theaterworks, Perishable Theatre, and others. Kristin has been a finalist for the Creative Capital award, the Princess Grace Fellowship, and Hedgebrook.
As a theatre teacher and mentor, Kristin is the Interim Head of Dramaturgy/Criticism at The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she co-founded the Disability Affinity Group. She has also taught at Northwestern University and was a Visiting Scholar at FLAME University in Pune, India. Additionally, she has mentored youth artists through the Pillsbury House + Theatre Chicago Avenue Project as well as the American Theatre Company’s docudrama project the Chicago Chronicle.
Her creative nonfiction and cultural criticism appear in The American Scholar, Fourth Genre, Multiplicity Magazine, HowlRound, and elsewhere. Her cultural criticism has special interest in experimental work and non-Western performance. She has received the Nonfiction Prize from Folio Literary Journal.
Kristin co-founded Cloudgate Theatre, a company dedicated to telling fiercely theatrical stories through a queer feminist lens. Cloudgate premiered her play Another Jungle in April 2018 in co-production with The Syndicate and Strange Heart Beating in July 2019. Previously, she served as the Associate Artistic Director and Literary Manager for Caffeine Theatre. She has worked in the literary departments at the Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Trinity Rep, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. She is a former Resident Playwright and board member of Chicago Dramatists, where she chaired the Artistic Affairs Committee.
She was awarded her MFA in Playwriting at the University of California, San Diego. She received her BFA in Theatre Arts from The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a double major in philosophy.
World Premiere: Cloudgate Theatre
Strange Heart Beating by Kristin Idaszak, 2019
Featured Artworks
Three Antarcticas by Kristin Idaszak, 2022
Academic production at The Theatre School at DePaul University
Image by Shane Kelly
Wildfire and the Bird Scouts, 2022
State Theatre of Turkey, Ankara
Tidy by Kristin Idaszak, 2023
World premiere at Renaissance Theaterworks
Image by Ross Zentner
Blue Blood Red Knot, 2024
Academic Production at Vanderbilt University Theatre Department and the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy
Image by Nick Hayes
PlayLabs, The Playwrights' Center, 2016