Biography

Anna Renée Winget (they/them currently living on Tongva land) is a queer trans neurodivergent playwright/ director/ activist/ scholar/ educator. They currently serve as Lecturer in Dramatic Arts at USC and at Loyola Marymount University where they teach courses such as Queer Theatre, Documentary Theatre, Writing for Performance, Theatre History and also direct—particularly shows that focus on social change and mental health. They are also a scholar at the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) where they are co-creator and collaborator on Crossing Pride: a transnational trauma-informed healing storytelling project and archive by/ for/ with queer and trans refugees.

In Fall 2023, Anna is co-producing with Highways Santa Monica and Sorority Theatre Co. DIS/PLACE: Stories of Home, Belonging, Migrating. They will also direct The Pliant Girls by Meghan Brown at LMU. Anna’s work privileges process over product and emphasizes trauma-informed, decolonial and consent-based practices toward safer, inclusive and healing creative spaces.

Anna is pursuing a drama therapy certification and holds a doctorate in drama and theatre from UCI and UCSD where they completed their dissertation, “Performing Possibilities: Trans-Healing in Activist Performance.” They received their MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. Notable publications are Home/Less in collaboration with the Newcomers Performance Project and the National Black Theatre of Sweden, co-editing and contributing for the special issue on Queer Healing and Transformative Justice in QED: The Journal of LGBTQ Worldmaking, co-authoring a peer-to-peer support group manual for LGBTQI+ Newly Arrived Migrants in Sweden. With Tiina Rosenberg and Sandra D’Urso, they co-edited and contributed in the textbook, Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance.