Hal Cosentino

Hal Cosentino

I am a transgender theater maker creating scripts that blend embodied performance with expansive language. I've developed work in Chicago, New York, and Austin. Previously I was a member of The Syndicate, a network of artists that produced new plays, performances, and events by women, queer, and trans people. Before that, as an undergraduate at Skidmore College, I studied performance with SITI Company and...
I am a transgender theater maker creating scripts that blend embodied performance with expansive language. I've developed work in Chicago, New York, and Austin. Previously I was a member of The Syndicate, a network of artists that produced new plays, performances, and events by women, queer, and trans people. Before that, as an undergraduate at Skidmore College, I studied performance with SITI Company and at the Moscow Art Theatre School. Right now I'm pursuing an M.F.A. in Playwriting at The University of Texas at Austin and frequently collaborating with my art/life partner, Ellenor Riley-Condit. My pronouns are he/him.

Plays

  • godfriend by Hal Cosentino
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQ+, queer parenting
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: LGBTQ+, queer parenting
    godfriend is a choral play about a couple–a cis woman and a trans man– who both could carry a child, but choose not to. Spiritual encounters during their respective OB-GYN exams cause them to both develop obsessions with the Public Universal Friend, a colonial Quaker preacher who claimed God renounced them of their gender. When one claims to be reborn as the Friend, they both must grieve the ways in which they...
    godfriend is a choral play about a couple–a cis woman and a trans man– who both could carry a child, but choose not to. Spiritual encounters during their respective OB-GYN exams cause them to both develop obsessions with the Public Universal Friend, a colonial Quaker preacher who claimed God renounced them of their gender. When one claims to be reborn as the Friend, they both must grieve the ways in which they are divided by both the limits of gender labels and their shared ability to procreate. This play tries to make sense of the messy impulse to create new life, and explores how amazing and confusing it is to love someone so much that you feel like the same person, whether that person is your spouse, your child, your god, or your friend.
  • Once In A Hundred Years by Hal Cosentino
    Cast: 
    9–15
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, movement/physical
    Chekhov’s The Seagull opens with a play within a play, its creator Treplev insisting “We need new forms!” Once In A Hundred Years uses this demand to launch a new play incorporating Chekhov's text and characters with original material to ask the questions: What was Treplev trying to create? What would a new form for the theater look like? With a form as ephemeral as live performance, what can we draw from...
    Chekhov’s The Seagull opens with a play within a play, its creator Treplev insisting “We need new forms!” Once In A Hundred Years uses this demand to launch a new play incorporating Chekhov's text and characters with original material to ask the questions: What was Treplev trying to create? What would a new form for the theater look like? With a form as ephemeral as live performance, what can we draw from the creators of the past and what can we hope to send into the future?
  • OH, BUDDY by Hal Cosentino
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy
    ·
    Keyword: masculinity, office comedy + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy
    Keyword: masculinity, office comedy, Transgender, social commentary
    It's hard to be the New Guy in the world's most generic office. It's even harder to be the New Guy when you're the New Guy because you came out as transgender. How are your Male coworkers supposed to act around you? What about your Female ones? And has anybody noticed that the boss is a Big Furry Monster? OH, BUDDY is a dark, absurdist comedy about how the bizarre demands of binary gender...
    It's hard to be the New Guy in the world's most generic office. It's even harder to be the New Guy when you're the New Guy because you came out as transgender. How are your Male coworkers supposed to act around you? What about your Female ones? And has anybody noticed that the boss is a Big Furry Monster? OH, BUDDY is a dark, absurdist comedy about how the bizarre demands of binary gender affect the way we take on roles in the workplace and beyond.
  • Lineage by Hal Cosentino
    Cast: 
    8–15
    ·
    Genre: pageant
    ·
    Keyword: Transgender, Surreal + 3 more
    Genre: pageant
    Keyword: Transgender, Surreal, pools, climate change, memory play
    Queer and trans neighbors pass their time around the pool in the courtyard of Future’s Corners, an apartment complex in a crumbling midwestern city. One day a Fake Rock starts talking and sets off a chain of memories that seem to seep up from the ground. When an old crush appears at the gate, she may bring the big wave that will end us all.
  • the desert play, or Nothing Feels Like by Hal Cosentino
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    ·
    Keyword: nonbinary, choral + 3 more
    Genre: experimental, movement/physical
    Keyword: nonbinary, choral, dreamlike, poetic, community
    Jan encounters a chorus of women in the desert. Jan tries to join them while knowing Jan doesn't belong. Jan is not a woman. Jan is something else. A strange, biting dream about naming a mythic force inside yourself for the first time.