Elena Penga was born in Thessaloniki. She studied theater and philosophy at Wesleyan University and screen and theater writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She staged her first plays in New York’s Off-Off Broadway scene and returned to Greece in the 90s. Since then her plays have been produced at the National Theater of Greece, National Theater of Northern Greece, the Athens Festival and Delphi among many other theaters. Her work has been translated into Dutch, Swedish, German, French, Italian and English, and performed in the United States, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and France.. She also wrote the screenplay for Lakis Papastathis’s award-winning film, The Only Journey of his Life. She teaches playwriting at the University of Patra, at the National Book Centre of Greece, and ITI Athens. Her plays are published by Nefeli Publishers. Her fiction is published from Agra Publishers. Her recent book Tight Belts and Other Skin is the winner of the Ouranis Prize from the Greek Academy of Letters (2012).

PLAYS

Woman and Wolf, 2013

Narcissus, 2011

Phaedra Or Alcestis- Love Stories, 2007

Who are our new friends?,  2006

Nelly’s takes her dog out for a walk, 2003

When the Go-Go Dancers dance, 2002

3-0-1 TRANSPORTS, 2000

Emperor’s New Clothes, based on Andersen’s fairytale, 1999

Waltz Excitation, 1998

Kaethe Kollwitz presents a brief history of modern art, 1995

Gorky’s Wife, 1995

A king listens, based on a short story by Italo Calvino, 1994

The Greek Alien & Poisons of the Sea, 1993

6 Jealous Numbers, based on Othello by Shakespeare,1992

Don Surrealism, one-act, 1991