Chris Szajbert

Chris Szajbert is a writer, director, performer, filmmaker, and longtime artist-resident of Cleveland. Since 2001, she has created over 50 original productions, including world premiere plays co-created with diverse casts of professional artists, youth, and community artists, as well as solo works. Szajbert works across media, developing theater that combines live acting with pre-recorded film, live-feed video, found-object puppetry, heightened movement, and/or original music. She has worked with many of the region’s professional theaters (most notably Cleveland Play House, Karamu House, and as a resident artist of Cleveland Public Theatre for over a decade). In recent years, Szajbert has explored intimate, site-specific work in alternative venues such as art galleries, street festivals, and nontraditional venues such as post-industrial warehouse spaces and historic buildings. 

Szajbert’s work has garnered recognition and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Center for Performance and Civic Practice, SPACES, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project (LA), Chicago C.A.A.P., and DirectorsLabChicago. She was an inaugural recipient of the Creative Workforce Fellowship (2010), a program of the CPAC (now Assembly for the Arts) funded by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. Szajbert is currently serving as an artist-in-residence through the IngenuityLabs Incubator Program, awarded in 2022, 2023, and 2024.