Bio from my website: Jen DiOrio is the writer, producer, and sole proprietor at Offsides NJ Productions (founded in 2008). In 2010, she self-produced Offsides, her full-length family drama and period piece directed by New York-based Alberto Bonilla at the Watchung Arts Center in New Jersey. Offsides is Bend It Like Beckham meets Girl Interrupted. At the WAC, she also produced a 10-minute play showcase featuring the scripts of her writing group (2013). Jen is looking for a director for Crush, her web series based on her 30-minute triptych also featured at the showcase. A short comedy version of Crush was performed at A.J. Ciccotelli’s Rainbow Festival in Ocean Grove/Asbury Park (a La Strada production) in June 2015. Lockdown, her short dark comedy, was performed as a staged reading at the Watchung Arts Center in October 2014 and as a full production in front of sold out crowds at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s Winter One Act Play Competition 2015. A short film of Lockdown is an idea on the horizon. La Strada produced Flowers, her one-woman show that honors more than 20 years of life experience and chronicles a transformation, as part of its Gifts Festival in January. Lucia & John, a tribute to her grandmother, was part of Gifts as well. Bubble, a slice-of-life short, was part of La Strada’s Rainbow Festival in May-June 2016. Lockdown will be performed at La Strada’s Crazy Love Festival in January 2017. Offsides is also slated for one of La Strada’s upcoming seasons. More details to follow…
Jen has collaborated with a number of other writers, editors, producers, and organizers and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Women Who Write, and La Strada Ensemble Theater. She was the creative producer for Sarah Dubinsky’s Catladies: The Musical That Makes Lawyers Purr at a festival held at the Producers Club in NYC in May 2014. She was a guest speaker at Dr. Juanita Kirton’s 4th Annual Women’s Writing Retreat at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in September 2014 as well. She also produced a show at the Watchung Arts Center in October 2014 that included performances by writer, actor, director, and activist Kyle Schickner; comedian, writer, and activist Joanne Filan; spoken word artist, writer, director, and activist Poet on Watch; and activist, actress, and director Sherri Rase. Back in 2004, McSweeney’s published Jen’s “Open Letter to Herman Miller,” written to the deceased cubicle designer, that was later featured as a reading on NPR’s Weekend America (2005). In addition, Jen has performed monologues, poems, and songs at Pandora Scooter’s Out of the Box in Highland Park, NJ and Michael Geffner’s The Inspired Word in NY. Musician and producer Echopathy of Louisville recorded the backbeats and sounds for one of her Sadie’s Lady Ways monologues in 2012. Jen also teaches British Literature and Creative Writing at a high school in NJ, where she is the clandestine curator, editor, and publisher of Echoes Literary Magazine. She lives with her spouse/wife and their three fur babies in Somerset.
Contact me at jenniferdiorio123[at]geemail.