Full disclosure, this article is about my wife and I am very proud of her.
Long Island born and raised Playwright Cindi Sansone-Braff received an email saying: “Congratulations, your script has been chosen as a winner of the 2nd Act Players’ 2021 spring new script competition. It will be performed online for two weekends this April and May (tentative dates are April 23, 24, 25, 30 and May 1, 2).”
It’s been quite the COVID year for Cindi because her plays, To the Zoom and Back, The Karma Bums, and Welcome to the House of Karma received stage readings by the Fishlicker Improv group in 2020. To the Zoom and Back was a finalist in the Think Fast Theater Festival 2021 and now a winner in the 2nd Act Players Spring 2021 Script Competition. No Rest for a Soul is in the Equity Library Theater Festival Spring 2021. Quite a flurry of activity!
“I am so excited!” Cindi told us. “Next week To the Zoom and Back will be in the Think Fast Festival, and just today I heard it was chosen to be produced by the 2nd Act Players.”
She has also penned full-length plays. Her dramatic play, A Whole, Empty House, was a finalist in the Robert A. Forest Playwriting Competition, while her romantic comedy, Angel’s Mice and Men, was a finalist in Lodi’s National New Play contest and Theatre Festival and was produced the summer of 2019 at the Summerfest Theater Festival at the Hudson Guild Theatre in NYC. It was also published in 2021 by Next Stage Press. Phantom Pain, another drama, was a finalist in the Playwrights Center’s Playlab program in Minneapolis. Her music drama, Beethoven’s Promethean Concerto in C Minor WoO, was produced at the BACCA Center on Long Island in August 2017 and received rave reviews.
“I have always done lectures, reviewed live theater, and when these events were temporarily suspended I went back to my life long passion, playwriting,” she noted. “Zoom allows you to connect with theater professionals across the country, affording you opportunities to have your work performed from the comfort and safety of your home. I am enjoying seeing the plays produced via Zoom. It’s exciting.”
Cindi, who graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut at Storrs, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in acting, directing, and playwriting, also has a full time job as a psychic medium and was awarded Long Island Press‘ Best Psychic for five consecutive years (2010-2015)! She is also a respected theatre critic for East Hampton Patch. The proud member of the Long Island Authors’ Group and the Dramatists Guild penned Grant Me a Higher Love and Why Good People Can’t Leave Bad Relationships.
“At first, I wanted to see if I could write a Zoom play after watching a few plays done via that platform,” Cindi said about writing during quarantine. “The next thing I knew, I was writing one short play after another. I sent them out and people liked and produced them.”
For more information about Cindi Sansone-Braff, visit www.grantmeahigherlove.com.