Carissa Atallah is an award-winning Southern California playwright.
Her debut play BROWN FACE was the 2022 recipient of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award presented by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. BROWN FACE also achieved Honorable Mention Status in the Playwright Foundation’s 45th Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
Her play VOIR DIRE was a winner of the 45th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival and is part of Off Off Broadway Festival Plays, 45th Series. VOIR DIRE was also a finalist for the Gary Garrison National Ten Minute Play Award.
Atallah was a 2023 Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, supported by the Tennessee Williams estate, where she worked under the mentorship of David Adjmi and Talene Monahon. In 2024, she became a fellow in the Candela Fellowship, a flagship program dedicated to fostering theater education for emerging playwrights of Latin American and Caribbean heritage held at the Dramatists Guild of America. Additionally, she is a two-time semi-finalist for The Future of Playwriting Prize, presented by Ucross and The Blank Theatre.
Atallah has worked in collaboration with the former Bay Area Children’s Theatre (Berkeley, CA), Rogue Artists Ensemble (Los Angeles, CA), Playwrights’ Arena (Los Angeles, CA), The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (Washington DC), and Pixel Playhouse (a multimedia theatre troupe bringing original musicals to its over one million TikTok and YouTube followers), among others.
Atallah has an MFA in Creative Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside, and her plays are available through Concord Theatricals.
Carissa Atallah 