Catherine Filloux, Playwright-Librettist-Activist-Episode #269

Storybeat with Steve Cuden

The award-winning French Algerian American playwright, librettist and activist, Catherine Filloux, has been, for the past 3 decades, traveling to conflict areas writing plays that address human rights and social justice.

Catherine’s new play, “How to Eat an Orange,” will open at La MaMa Theatre in New York City, and her new musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” (written with composer Jimmy Roberts of, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” fame) will premiere Off-Broadway at the York Theatre in New York. It’s a National Alliance for Musical Theatre finalist.

Catherine’s play, “White Savior” is nominated for The Venturous Play List. Her many plays have been produced around the U.S. and internationally. I’ve read her play Lemkin’s House and can tell you it’s an intense and engaging exploration of the politics of genocide through the surreal landscape of the mind of Raphael Lemkin, the man who invented the word genocide.

Catherine’s also the librettist for four produced operas, including New Arrivals, Where Elephants Weep, and The Floating Box. Her works have been played on Cambodian national TV, on Broadway on Demand, and chosen for Opera News Critic’s Choice. And her opera, “Orlando,” is the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Award--the first opera by a woman composer and woman librettist in the history of the Vienna Staatsoper.

Catherine has traveled for her plays to countries including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco, Northern Ireland, and Sudan and South Sudan on an overseas reading tour with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.

Catherine received her French Baccalaureate in Philosophy with Honors in Toulon, France, and is the co-founder/co-director of Theatre Without Borders.