Cusi Cram is a first-generation native New Yorker whose parents emigrated from Bolivia and Scotland. She is a playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, educator, performer, and passionate advocate for under-represented artists. Cusi’s work often explores the challenges of forging an authentic self in a society that benefits from conformity and uniformity. Spanning many forms and genres, her writing is grounded in deep emotional honesty, a love of the absurd, and a fervent belief that hope is our way through the never-ending chaos of being human. Some of Cusi’s notable plays include "Novenas for a Lost Hospital" (Rattlestick), "The Complicated," "Radiance," "All the Bad Things" (LAByrinth Theater Company), "A Lifetime Burning" (Primary Stages), "Dusty and the Big Bad Worlds" (Denver Center for the Performing Arts), "Lucy and the Conquest" (Williamstown Theatre Festival), "Fuente Ovejuna: A Disloyal Adaptation" (Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts), "Fuente" (Barrington Stage), "Landlocked and The End of It All" (South Coast Repertory’s Hispanic Playwrights Project), and "Camp Kappawanna" (Atlantic Theater Company). Her work has also been produced and supported by Ensemble Studio Theater, Cornerstone Theater Company, New Georges, Powerhouse Theater, The O’Neill Theater Center, The Sloan, Bogliasco, and Camargo Foundations, Space on Ryder Farm, MacDowell, The Herrick Foundation, The Fornés Institute, The Ford Foundation, The Church, NYU’s Global Research Institute in Madrid, and the Venturous and Stillpoint Funds—in addition to many universities and theaters, large and petite, across the country. Cusi wrote for many years on the PBS children’s program "Arthur," for which she received three Emmy nominations. She also worked for several seasons as a writer on Showtime’s "The Big C," starring Laura Linney. In addition, she has written for television programs for both children and adults that 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 Malone Awards and screened at over twenty festivals nationwide. She recently directed a dystopian feminist short film produced by the Moonshot Collective. Cusi often uses New York City as both a stage and a source of historical inspiration. She has created two dramatic walking tours supported by the Ford Foundation and Rattlestick. She is a 2018 recipient of a NYSCA commission for her play "Novenas for a Lost Hospital," which explored the long and notable history of St Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village. She is currently developing an immersive theater piece inspired by New York’s 1975 fiscal crisis. Cusi is a proud member of LAByrinth Theater Company and serves on the board of the Leah Ryan Fund. She is a former board member of Rattlestick Theater and the Lilly Awards, and is currently the Associate Chair of the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.