C. Quintana, or CQ

Photo: Antonio De Lucci

C. QUINTANA, or CQ (pronouns: she/any) is a queer writer with Cuban and New Orleans roots. CQ tells stories that mine the misconception of dissimilarity and proclaim, "You are not alone."

Her plays and musicals have been developed and produced across the country with Diversionary Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, INTAR, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and more. Her play Scissoring is available via Dramatists Play Service. For more, visit NPX.

CQ's poetry, fiction, and lyric nonfiction is published in Third Coast, Jacar Press, The Wildness Journal, Foglifter, great weather for MEDIA, and beyond. The author of the poetry chapbook The Heart Wants (Finishing Line Press), CQ's poem "She-lium" was featured on Radiolab's "Elements" episode in collaboration with Emotive Fruition, now Poetry Well.

CQ's television writing includes: her half-hour dramedy Career Gay, a top ten featured pilot on the inaugural Out in Hollywood list. Her dystopian drama pilot, Invisible Lily, appeared on the WeForShe "Ones to Watch" List. She served as Staff Writer on ABC's The Baker and the Beauty (2020) and Story Editor on AMC's upcoming Orphan Black: Echoes (2023).

She is the recipient of grants & fellowships from NYSCA, Café Royal Cultural Foundation, MacDowell, Playwrights Realm, Van Lier/New Voices at The Lark, CubaOne, Lambda Literary, and Queer|Art, as well as commissions from The Kennedy Center, Audible, The Civilians, EST/Alfred P. Sloan Project, and more. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. @cquintanatown

projects.

writing.

selected plays.

BEASTGIRL

Music by Janelle Lawrence | Based on "Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths" by Elizabeth Acevedo (World Premiere Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences 2022) From the Dominican Republic to an apartment rooftop in New York City, Beastgirl considers what it means to walk the world as “beastly” beings and how the myths that make us can be both blessing and birthright.

AZUL

(West Coast Premiere Diversionary Theatre 2021 | World Premiere: Southern Rep 2019 | 2017 Kilroys List ) Spanning two countries and three generations, AZUL fuses music and memory to ask: what is the true language of love?

CITIZEN SCIENTIST

(Finalist BPP Woodward/Newman Award | Second Prize Barrington Stage Company Burman New Play Award | EST/Sloan Project Commission) Neema, an astronomer, meet exploring the starfield for exoplanets and battling their recent losses. Together, they discover a planet and learn what it means to be present here on Earth.

ENTER YOUR SLEEP

(Zoom Theater 2020 | Yale Cabaret 2018 | NYC Fringe 2014) Childhood best friends, meet in a wild night of dreams to unravel their complex friendship, battle their sadness, and, ultimately, face a looming, dark truth.

EVENSONG

(World Premiere: Astoria Performing Arts Center, 2016) Teo works as a bank teller, goes on mediocre online dates, and searches for stability and connection while navigating the tangled shelter system.

THE GREAT LONELY ROAMER AND THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

(Featured in inaugural NYU Voices Festival with The Movement 2017) On New Year’s Eve, a polar bear arrives in suburban Texas in search of a new home, while his sister winds up in New York City to track him down. What follows: a night that will impact the future of an entire species...

SCISSORING

(Available via Dramatists Play Service | World Premiere: INTAR 2018 | Finalist Alliance/Kendeda 2014) When Abigail Bauer takes a job as a teacher at a conservative Catholic school, she is forced to step back into the closet. As she struggles to reconcile her professional ambitions, personal relationships, religious beliefs, and internalized shame, she must find the courage to be unabashedly herself.

THREE THOUSAND SEIZURES

(CEAD Residency, 2017) New York advertising exec Petra Hourani battles her escalating epilepsy symptoms and impending neurosurgery. Haunted by her personified seizures, who is she with them and who is she without them?

FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES

Write for more information re: licensing of CQ's TYA work, including Flor to Somewhere, Música, Música, Máximo, Música (Peppercorn Theatre), Amiga Duende (Palo Alto Playhouse), and The Literate Mermaid (Girl Tales)