Cusi Cram

Cusi Cram is a first generation native New Yorker whose parents originally came from Bolivia and Scotland. She is a playwright, screenwriter, director, educator, performer, and an advocate for under-represented writers in the arts.

Her plays have been produced by LAByrinth Theater Company, Primary Stages, The Denver Center, South Coast Repertory’s Hispanic Playwrights Project, The Williamstown Theater Festival, The Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theater, Cornerstone Theater Company, Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts, New Georges, and at universities and theaters, large and petite, all over the country. Her work for stage and screen has been supported by The O’Neill Theater Center, The Sloan Foundation, The Bogliasco Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, Space on Ryder Farm, The Ford Foundation, MacDowell, NYU’s Global Research Institute in Madrid, and the Venturous and the Stillpoint Funds and many other generous organizations.

Cusi wrote for many years on the PBS children’s program, Arthur,  for which she received three Emmy nominations. She also worked as a writer for several seasons on Showtime's The Big C, starring Laura Linney. Additionally, she’s written on television programs for both kids and adults which have aired on Amazon, PBS, and the BBC. She directed her first film, Wild and Precious, through AFI's Directing Workshop for Women where it won The Adrienne Shelly and Nancy Mallone Awards and played at over twenty festivals nationwide.

Cusi often uses New York City as both a stage and source of historical inspiration. She has created two different dramatic walking tours supported by the Ford Foundation. She is a  recipient of a NYSCA commission for her play, Novenas for a Lost Hospital, about St. Vincent’s Hospital, which premiered at Rattlestick Theater, starring Kathleen Chalfant.

Cusi is a member of LAByrinth Theater Company and sits on the board of Rattlestick Theater and the Leah Ryan Foundation, and is the former director of outreach for the Lilly Awards. She has taught at Fordham, Columbia University, The Sewanee Writer’s Conference, and NYU Florence. She is a graduate of Brown University and The Lila Acheson American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.