CATHERINE FILLOUX is an award-winning French Algerian American playwright, librettist, and activist, who has been writing about human rights for many decades. Filloux’s new play “How to Eat an Orange” was commissioned by INTAR and premieres at La MaMa in New York City in 2024. Her new musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” (composer Jimmy Roberts, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”) premieres Off-Broadway at the York Theatre in New York City in 2024; it is a National Alliance for Musical Theatre finalist and received a workshop at the Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, NY (Hunter Foster, AD). Catherine’s new play “White Savior” was nominated for The Venturous Play List. Her plays have been produced nationally, internationally and have been widely anthologized and written about. Filloux is the librettist for four produced operas: “Orlando” (composer Olga Neuwirth) is the first opera by a woman composer-librettist team in the history
of the Vienna State Opera and is the 2022 Grawemeyer Award winner. Catherine has traveled for her plays to conflict-zones including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco, and to Sudan and South Sudan on an overseas reading tour with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.
Filloux’s plays include: “turning your body into a compass” her livestream web drama at CultureHub, New York City (NYC); “whatdoesfreemean?” at Nora’s Playhouse, NYC; “Kidnap Road”, La MaMa, NYC; “Selma ‘65”, NYC and U.S. tour; “Luz”, La MaMa and Looking for Lilith in Louisville, KY. “Dog and Wolf” (59E59 Theaters/Watson Arts, NYC and “Dog and Wolf” Community Outreach Project.); “Killing the Boss” (Cherry Lane Theatre, NYC); “Lemkin’s House” (Rideau de Bruxelles, Belgium; McGinn-Cazale Theatre & 78th Street Theatre Lab, NYC; Kamerni teatar 55, Sarajevo, Bosnia); “The Beauty Inside” (New Georges, NYC and InterAct, Philadelphia, PA; also translated into Arabic for a workshop at ISADAC in Rabat, Morocco; and produced in Iraq, in Kurdish by ArtRole.) “Eyes of the Heart” (National Asian American Theatre Co., NYC); “Silence of God” (Contemporary American Theater Festival [CATF], WV); “Mary and Myra” (CATF and Todd Mountain Theater, NY); “Arthur’s War” (commissioned by Theatreworks/ USA, NYC); “Photographs From S-21”, a short play produced throughout the world; “Escuela del Mundo” (commissioned by The Ohio State University, Columbus and Ohio tour.)
Other opera productions: “New Arrivals” (Houston Grand Opera, composer John Glover); “Where Elephants Weep” (Chenla Theatre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, composer Him Sophy) broadcast on Cambodian national television and Broadway on Demand; “The Floating Box” (Asia Society, NYC, composer Jason Kao Hwang) an Opera News Critic’s Choice and released by New World Records. Filloux is the librettist for the new operas “Blued Trees” (eco-artist Aviva Rahmani; composer Julia Schwartz) and Thresh’s “L’Orient” (composer Kamala Sankaram; choreographer Preeti Vasudevan.)
Filloux was invited to Belfast, Northern Ireland for the Henry Smith Artist in Residence Programme with The Derry Playhouse and served as a Juror for Sarajevo’s MES International Theater Festival in Bosnia. She developed the Oral History Project “A Circle of Grace” with the Cambodian Women's Group at St. Rita’s Refugee Center in Bronx, NY. Filloux was Playwright Facilitator for the International Playwright Retreat at La MaMa Umbria in Italy and is a Fulbright Senior Specialist. She received her French Baccalaureate in Philosophy with Honors in Toulon, France, and her M.F.A. at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing, NYC. Catherine is featured in the documentary film “Acting Together on the World Stage,” and is the co-founder/co-director of Theatre Without Borders, a grassroots volunteer organization. Filloux has been a guest on numerous podcasts speaking about her artist-changemaker work and has volunteered as a speaker for theater and human rights organizations around the world. Catherine has worked on the development of five films for the Reimagining Myself transition prison reentry program with RTA, is the board president of CultureHub, and a mentor to many writers.
Filloux has served as a speaker/panelist at playwriting and human rights events and organizations around the world. For a list click here
SELECTED AWARDS / HONORS / COMMISSIONS
2024
LMCC Manhattan Arts Grants recipient, New York, NY
WHITE SAVIOR Nominated for inaugural 2023-25 Venturous List, by nationally prominent playwrights for Venturous Theater Fund & 2023 Theater555 Reading Series, Masterworks Theater Company, Artistic Directors: Ylfa Edelstein & Dan Lauria, New York, NY
https://newplayexchange.org/features/venturous-plays
2022
Grawemeyer Award: Catherine Filloux, librettist, for the opera ORLANDO; with composer Olga Neuwirth,
premiere at the Vienna Staatsoper
2019
Catherine Filloux received The 2019 Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship 2019. A major project of Mānoa Foundation is a Hawai‘i writing residency honoring Barry Lopez and emphasizing a spirit of social responsibility. The annual award is given to a writer whose work contributes to an awareness of the civic and ethical obligation of artists; helps us understand, through storytelling, that the survival of a humane world depends upon a commitment to integrity, empathy, and compassionate reconciliation; and inspires us to take social responsibility for the perils, which we have created ourselves, to the human and non-human world. A small committee of writers and advisors, including Lopez, selects one writer each year for the residency.
http://manoafoundation.org/residencies
2017
Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre, New York, NY
2016
First Art & Peacebuilding Scholar, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego, CA
2015
The Clementine, poem nominated for the Pushcart Small Press Publishing Awards (published in the Prairie Journal, Alberta, Canada)
This year Planet Connections will honor Catherine Filloux, Playwright of Kidnap Road with the Planet Activist Award. Ms Filloux will be presented with this award due to her long career as an activist artist in the theater community.
Distinguished Speaker, Monmouth University, School of Social Work 40th Anniversary, West Long Branch, New Jersey
2014
Commission as librettist for composer Olga Neuwirth's opera ORLANDO for the Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna State Opera, based on the novel by Virginia Woolf. Libretto for New Opera, 2019 Season
Play Commission for Book Wings Iraq 2014
LMCC The Fund for Creative Communities Grant, with Settlement Housing Fund
LMCC Manhattan Community Arts Fund Grant
Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant, with Still Waters in a Storm
2013
Ethelwyn Doolittle Justice and Outreach Committee grant
To support Catherine’s new play Selma '65 premiering at La MaMa in New York City, in September - October 2014.
2012
Manhattan Community Arts Fund grant, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York, NY
The Fund for Creative Communities grant, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and NYSCA, New York, NY
Local Arts Support, Brooklyn Arts Council/NYSCA, Brooklyn, NY
Honorary Jury, Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, The Third Biennial William Saroyan Prize for Playwriting, Pasadena, CA
2011
Ongoing - Resident Artist, La MaMa, New York, NY
Lambent Foundation Grant, Tides Center, New York, NY
Henry Smith Artist in Residence Programme in Belfast’s Woodvale Cambrai Community Centre and Holy Cross/Wheatfield Primary Schools, The Playhouse Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland
To work as an artist-in-residence with communities in Belfast, Northern Ireland
2010
Voice Award for Artistic Works (Voices of Women)
For Filloux’s body of work as a playwright on human rights San Diego Magazine coverage
LMCC Manhattan Community Arts Fund Grant
To support the world premiere of the play “Dog and Wolf,” by Catherine Filloux, presented as the inaugural production of Watson Arts’ “Write Women Project,” a playwriting series dedicated to female playwrights.
Hermitage Artist Retreat, Englewood, FL
2009
New Generations-Future Collaborations Award (Mellon Foundation/TCG)
For her work in Cambodia
2007
Core Writer, The Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis, MN
Body of Work
2006
PeaceWriting Award (Omni Center for Peace)
1998-2006 5-time Heideman Award Finalist (Actors Theatre of Louisville)
Photographs From S-21, White Trash, Lessons of My Father, The Beauty Inside, Passion.com
The William Inge Center for the Arts Playwright-In-Residence, Independence, Kansas
2005
The Joe A. Callaway Award, New Dramatists
Now an alumna
2004
Jury for 44th MES International Theater Festival Sarajevo, Bosnia
One of three international jurors selecting winners of Theater Festival
Fulbright Senior Specialist (Higher Institute of Drama & Cultural Animation; Rabat, Morocco)
The Beauty Inside in Arabic
Play Commission; The Ohio State University Theatre Dept. & Office of International Affairs
Opera Commission; Composer Him Sophy, Cambodian Living Arts; John Burt, Producer
2003
Fulbright Senior Specialist (Royal University of Fine Arts; Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
Playwriting Workshop/Teaching in Cambodia
James Thurber Playwright-In-Residence, Columbus, Ohio
2002
Contemporary American Theater Festival New Play Commission, West Virginia
Theatreworks/USA New Play Commission, New York City
Arthur’s War
25th Bay Area Playwrights Festival, San Francisco, CA
2001
Asian Cultural Council Artist’s Residency Grant in Asia (Cambodia), New York City
Weissberger Award Finalist
1999
Roger L. Stevens Award: The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays
Winner Nausicaa Franco-American Play Contest
1998
Van Nostrand Playwright Commission
1996
Eric Kocher Playwrights Award (National Playwrights Conference, O'Neill Theater Center)