Kristiana Rae Colón

Kristiana Rae Colón (born April 16, 1986) is an American poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, creator of #BlackSexMatters and co-founder of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. She was awarded 2017 Best Black Playwright by The Black Mall. Her plays have premiered in Chicago, New York, London, and other cities. Colón is the author of several plays and poems. She earned the 2013 Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize. Her play, Octagon, won Colón the Arizona Theatre Company 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award. Kristiana's writing, producing, and organizing work to radically reimagine power structures, our complicity in them, and visions for liberation.

Early life and education Colón is the daughter of April and former Alderman Rey Colón, who met during their college years in a writing class. They both encouraged their children to be involved in the arts. She was born and raised in Chicago, where she attended gifted elementary schools and graduated with honors from Whitney Young High School. Colón earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Activism Colón is the co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective and co-creator of #BlackSexMatters Colón is the executive director of the group. The collective formed in 2014 as a way to raise funds to bring tear gas protection to protesters in Ferguson.

Theatre but i cd only whisper was premiered at the Arcola Theater in London in 2012. This production was inspired by the Ferguson protesters along with the Let Us Breathe Collective and Lost Voices, and it was featured on the 2016 Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival.

Her play, Octagon, is full of complicated female characters who are preparing for a slam poetry contest. The Chicago Tribune wrote that "'Octagon' sometimes feels more like an octopus, with many tentacles reaching in multiple directions. But by the end, it proves exhilarating, exhausting and plain exciting. Just like a great poetry slam should be." laced with hip hop and poetry, bursts with preconceptions about taboos such as women's sexuality, and concepts of consent that have been shaped and re-shaped by millennial social media. This particular production it was developed in the MFA Writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it also received its first staged reading.

Poetry Colón earned the Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize in 2013 for her chapbook, promised instruments.