Lynea Diaz-Hagan

A Black, Puerto Rican, and Colombian writer from small town New England and a former criminology profile writer who was raised in the shadows of a serial killer case, Lynea writes about outsiders, culture clash, and human natures we would rather ignore.

She got her start in entertainment as the assistant to Tony Award-winning producer, Barry Weissler, working on the Broadway productions of CHICAGO–THE MUSICAL and ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, before joining Jonathan Demme’s film company, Clinica Estetico, and freelancing as a story analyst for four years.

After completing an MFA in Screenwriting at UCLA, she joined a tech startup (to pay the bills) and moved to Silicon Valley, only to discover that grinding hours at the office makes it hard to write.

So, she did what every restless writer does — decided to sing jazz.

Gigging and writing lyrics while completing a master’s degree in music, Lynea began developing voice and text-based sound installations as a resident artist with the North Street Collective. In 2018, competing creative impulses came together when she wrote, composed, and performed OCEAN, a 45-minute chamber musical combining jazz, theater, and sound installation.

Now residing in San Francisco, Lynea writes, directs, and produces solo shows, plays, and musical work and has returned to screenwriting. Her first play, THE EDUCATION OF ADDY JIMENEZ is currently a Finalist in ScreenCraft’s 2021 Stage Play Competition.

A politics and history buff, she is currently writing a historical dramedy (think Oscar Wilde) set in Victorian London, the libretto of an opera based on ancient Babylonian myth, and adapting her second play, THE PAYMASTER’S DREAM, a multigenerational drama about a Puerto Rican family’s ascent from the 1950s to the 1980s, into a TV pilot.

Lynea has received multiple grants for her work, including 2021 and 2018 CA$H Grants from Theatre Bay Area, a 2019 Literary Artist Commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission, and a 2019 theatre production grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

When not writing or making music, Lynea spends time teaching, coaching fellow artists, and living a quiet life with her partner Tom.

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