Hi, privet, bonjour, oi, shalom, hola, I'm Marianna.
I'm a screenwriter, filmmaker, playwright, poet, performer, and performance and identity scholar.
I'm from a place that no longer exists—the Soviet Union—so from a young age I was attuned to the arbitrary nature of the social systems we take for granted. My protagonists are often struggling to be their authentic selves within systems they didn't choose.
I tend to work in tones and genres like:
Dark and absurdist comedy, dramedy, fantasy, folklore, grounded high concept—often poetic, lyrical, academic, and tongue-in-cheek, spanning both experimental/indie and commercial work.
Themes I return to:
Feminism, social commentary, mental health, identity, immigration, childhood, coming-of-age, and modern-meets-historic worlds.
I've written in most mediums, but what I love best is writing for performance.
I'm interested in all things at the intersection of creativity, identity, and social impact. By "social impact" I mean inviting audiences to question the expectations, stereotypes, archetypes, and molds in which we can get stuck without realizing it.
Read my doctoral dissertation on how to use theatre methods to cope with the everyday psychological torture of it all for free here.
I'm bicoastal and signed with literary manager Seth Nagel of Impish Grin Corp.
