News – Maria Cominis

Women of Zalongo

October 12th, 2019

WOMEN OF ZALONGO is a non-linear, contemporary play revealing Angie’s ancestral immigrant family secrets. Angie, a middle-aged, retired, art professor takes care of her mother with dementia. As her mother’s short-term memory diminishes, her long-term memories come alive, revealing untold secrets of their lineage and the brave women of Zalongo who took drastic measures to flee enslavement from the Ottoman Empire. Celebrating sisterhood in the ongoing fight for women’s rights, the play is driven by Balkan music and dance and the cast consists of seven women and one male with doubling.

Play Fest Santa Barbara

June 21st, 2019

OUT THERE RIGHT HERE by AR Nicholas, at the Santa Barbara Public Library, with Maria Cominis, Crister De Leon Vega, Jeffrey Doornbos, John Fink, and Maggie Mixsell. Coordinated by R. Michael Gros with a talk back moderated by Anna Jensen.

ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

June 21st, 2019

THE LIFE OF US-by Ben Bennett and Ashleigh Taylor with Kristin Piacentile T.J. Power Maria Cominis Connor Del Rio May 18th, 2019 at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the performing Arts ASCAP Songwriters Workshop

What an MFA Degree Is and What You Need to Know

December 12th, 2018

Maria Cominis – a theater professor, professional director and working actress who has published books about acting and who most recently played Mona Clarke on the TV show “Desperate Housewives” – says that she has “never regretted” getting an MFA. Cominis, who teaches at California State University—Fullerton says people who pursue an MFA are typically seeking an […]

FRANKENSTEIN: An original Cal State Fullerton production comes to life

October 15th, 2017

Cominis sees the artistic challenge of changing people’s preconceived notions about “Frankenstein.” “It’s about humanity. It delves into so many different themes — about family, about what it means to be different, what it means to belong, and when ambition is out of line and out of balance,” says the director. What she sees in […]

Original CSUF play adaptation breathes new life into ‘Frankenstein’

September 19th, 2017

Stitched together from body parts, Victor Frankenstein’s horrifying, iconic creature will animate out of electricity into the living dead for audiences at the Young Theatre at Cal State Fullerton starting on Sept. 29. The production asks profound questions about what it means to be human, exploring both desire and betrayal. “You know when you listen […]

The Diviners

October 25th, 2015

“…a droll Maria Cominis delights as Basil’s nagging wife Luella, not nearly so willing as the others to accept C.C.”

‘Desperate Housewives’ 12 Most Memorable Moments

May 14th, 2012

Season 6, Episode 10, “Boom Crunch”: Plane Crashes on Wisteria Lane (Aired Dec. 6, 2009) A hostage situation, a tornado—why not throw another catastrophe at the cul-de-sac? By this time, many Desperate Housewives viewers had had enough of all the melodrama, but the show always did big well. Even if viewers knew no one they […]

A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review: Fortinbras

April 27th, 2008

Lee Blessing’s 1992 political satire is even more timely today and may well be the funniest show in town. It begins where Shakespeare’s Hamlet ended, with the entrance of young Prince Fortinbras (Greg Baglia), whose idiom is strictly 20th century. The inhabitants of Elsinore, living and dead, are still playing old tapes and those who know Hamlet will get […]

‘Fortinbras’ is funny and now timely

April 12th, 2008

Lee Blessing’s “Fortinbras” has really come into its own. Anyone who first saw the play a decade or more ago may have been genuinely amused by Blessing’s cheeky, offbeat comedy. However, in its current production, presented by Theatre Neo at the Secret Rose in North Hollywood, “Fortinbras” seems almost freakishly timely, the kind of pungent […]