Cris Eli Blak has had his work produced and performed Off-Broadway; on university stages; across the country regionally; in London, Australia, Ireland, and Canada. He is the inaugural winner of the Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative for his play The Final Verses of The Prophet and Wiz, which received a workshop and invite-only presentation at Open Jar Studios in the Broadway Theatre District. He was awarded the 2024 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award from the Southeastern Theatre Conference for his play Between Dog and Wolf. He is also the first place winner of Atlanta Shakespeare Company's inaugural Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival for his play The (MiS)Education of the Young Miss Cassie Jonze. His play The Former Kings of Clutch City won the award for Best Play at the 2023 Downtown Urban Arts Festival. He has received honors and recognition from TEDxBroadway, The Negro Ensemble Company, Kairos Italy Theater, Austin Film Festival, Barrington Stage Company, TEDxBroadway, and Ignition Arts. He has been brought on as a staff writer for the fifth season of the hit Starz series, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and is an artist-in-residence at Abingdon Theatre Company. He was previously the playwright-in-residence with Fosters Theatrical Artists Residency, Paterson Performing Arts Development Council, and La Lengua Teatro en Español/AlterTheater Ensemble; the recipient of the Michael Bradford Residency from Quick Silver Theatre Company, The State University of New York - Oswego, a 2023 FORGE Fellow, the recipient of the Emerging Playwrights Fellowship from The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre Company and was in the inaugural class of fellows for the Black Theatre Coalition. He has developed work with Rattlestick Theatre, Company One, The Road Theatre, American Stage, The Negro Ensemble Company, Pipeline Theatre Company, the Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival, and The Pikeville City Comission; and is currently under commission and/or developing work with Endstation Theatre Company, Blended City, and The Sankofa Collective. He was also one of the commissioned storytellers for We Hear You: A Climate Archive, which will be published, adapted, and performed as a full-length play in 2024 at The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden.
He has written solo performance pieces that have been commissioned and produced by Louisville Arts Network, Lifeline Theatre, Mx. Mellona Solo Performance Festival, Rattlestick Theatre, and El Teatro Campesino. He co-wrote the dance/theatre-hybrid piece, The Movement, for the Louisville Ballet. He created, produced, and hosted the informational podcast, The Black Man Mental Health Hour; was commissioned to write the audio performance piece, The Amerika Mixtape for Ignition Arts; and created, wrote, and directed the five-episode audio drama series, The Last of the Son, which was a semifinalist in the Fiction Podcast category at the Austin Film Festival and for the Rooster Teeth BIPOC Fellowship. Plays and monologues have been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc., Ghost Light Publications, YOUTHPlays, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, Left Edge Theatre, and New World Theatre; academic essays and articles have been published in the Black Theatre Review and TAUNT Magazine. Poetry and short stories have been published by the International Human Rights Arts Festival, Prime Number Magazine, and the Counterclaim Review. His short story "Soul Cowboy" was published in A&U Magazine after being awarded the Christopher Hewitt Award for Fiction, and subsequently received a Pushcart Prize nomination.
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As an educator, he has taught on the university level at The State University of New York - Oswego, and has worked as a teaching artist, workshop presenter, arts mentor, and visiting artist with Fine Arts Forward, The Stuttering Association for the Youth, Junior Texas Thespian Festival, Tumbleweed Productions, and the Dramebaazi Children’s Theatre Festival. He worked as an Intermittent Interactive Theatre Facilitator at the University of Louisville. In the world of film and video, he was a semifinalist for the One-Eyed Rabbit Productions Black Screenwriters Grant. He wrote and co-produced The Brother’s Survivor, which won the Bronze Remi for Best Long-Short Film at the Worldfest Houston Film and Video Festival. He also wrote the short films A Better Day and An Education (also co-director), which was an official selection of the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival and the Gary International Black Film Festival. He wrote the first episode of the bilingual-webseries La Bici for Teatro Milagro and the Juneteenth-themed educational video, What Is Free? for the Los Angeles African American Employees Association.
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He is currently represented by Stewart Talent Agency.