Bump –> Set –> Spike –> Bruise
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Diana
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SYNOPSIS
Mo (short for Molly, short for Mary, short for the *Virgin* Mary) likes to hit hard. Kat (short for Ekaterina Gordeeva – oh, brother) likes to rhyme. They wind up as volleyball partners. At 10, 13, 16, and in infinity, they wind up as volleyball partners: growing their garden of queer charm, cultivating their bruised volleyball forearms, and resisting their love for each other. Well, until…
PLAYWRIGHT’S BIO
Diana Lobontiu is a Romanian American playwright, actor, administrator, and educator based in Brooklyn. They are an Adjunct Professor in playwriting. They are interested in exploring the intersections of masculinity, dominance + oppression, failure, and loneliness. Diana is a member of the Fresh Binder Spring 2025 Cohort, a 2024 MacDowell Fellow, a 2023 Jane Hoppen Resident with Paragraph Workspace for Writers, and received the 2023 Puffin Grant for My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay. Recent writing includes My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay (Published by 1319 Press; The Brick Theater 2023, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest 2022), Rentabutch (Bushwick Starr Reading Series Finalist 2023), and If You’re A Man At Night…You Gotta Be A Man In The Morning (The Brick Theater 2024, The Workshop Theatre 2023). MFA: Playwriting, Brooklyn College.
A BIT ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
When did you start writing plays? If you had a moment where you realized you wanted to write, what was it?
I started out as an actor, and studied “abroad” in CT at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center for one semester during college – part of the curriculum involved a mandatory playwriting class, which I failed at miserably. I wrote cheeseball after cheeseball, thinly veiled diary entries whose sputtering engines could barely hold themselves up, much less take an audience anywhere. After the eighth thinly veiled diary entry, I landed upon a clash of two ideas that roared to life: a play about a lesbian nun in rural Romania who wants to be a saint so she can be idolized by pilgrims. This simultaneous existence of two opposing truths clashed in one fist holds the key to my writing. It allows me to show both the idealistic and nasty side of humanity, to offer up nuanced tributes to the communities that forged me, combined with a sharp jab in the throat. Both are necessary for a good story.
How did you come to write your OOB play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? How has it developed?
I grew up playing volleyball in various dingy gyms in Alaska, and I wanted to explore a nuanced queer relationship growing out of the cracks of the lack of care around women’s sports. I was also interested in the relationship between volleying a ball and volleying words, and the bruises both can leave behind that transform, in time, into callouse.
What are five words that describe who you are as a playwright?
Sharp, unwieldy, funny, strange, gay (ugh).
What/who are some of the major influences on your writing?
Aleshea Harris, Will Arbery, María Irene Fornés, Tim Robinson.
What’s one fact someone would never guess about you?
I am an identical twin!
What are some of your favorite plays?
Plano by Will Arbery, Is God Is by Aleshea Harris, Fefu and Her Friends by María Irene Fornés, Nate: A One Man Show by Natalie Palamides, Wet Brain by John J. Caswell, Jr.
Any new projects you’re working on or shameless plugs?
Not at the moment – come see OOB!
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