Jessica Durdock Moreno
- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
In no particular order, Jessica Durdock Moreno is a writer, producer, actress, director, and teacher. The first time she officially wore all those hats at the same time was at the 2019 Hollywood Fringe Festival, where her play "To Richard!" premiered, won the Encore Producers Award, and was nominated for the Inkwell Theater Playwright's Promise Award.
As a writer, Jessica's second play "Georgie D." was developed in the Chain Theatre Playwriting Lab, where it received a full workshop production in New York in the summer of 2021. She was a finalist for the Theater Masters Take Ten 2020 Festival, and a semifinalist for the Athena Project's 2020 Plays in Progress Series. She has developed plays with the Workshop Theater, who presented a reading of her play "New Canaan" starring Debra Jo Rupp in the fall of 2021. Her work has been presented by TEDx Asbury Park, the Full Circle Theatre Collaborative's New Works Festival, the Boston Theater Marathon, the NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, and the NYU Tisch Critical Response Process Workshop. She has published plays with Smith and Kraus, and also some scripts literary magazine. She began her writing training at Los Angeles City College, where she won the 2019 Cinema and Television Department's Best Screenplay Award for her television pilot "Filly." She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2021 where she was the recipient of the John Golden Playwriting Prize, awarded by the MFA faculty. She is currently in residence with the Echo Theater Company's Los Angeles Young Playwrights program.
As a producer, Jessica has developed original plays and managed productions off-Broadway in New York, in Los Angeles, and multiple turns at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her award-winning productions have been featured in or reviewed by The New York Times, Variety, W Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Post, Newsweek, Time-Out NY, The Village Voice, USA Today, Backstage Magazine, The Scotsman, The Edinburgh Evening News, The Stage UK, The LA-ist, and numerous other national and international publications.
As an actress, Jessica has performed lead roles off-Broadway in New York, in Los Angeles, the National Black Theater Festival, and multiple turns at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She has also appeared in several award-winning independent films, and as a bunch of different nurses on a bunch of different daytime dramas. She won the Most Unleashed Performance Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the Outstanding Theatre Performance Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and was nominated for a Stage Scene LA Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Lead Actress in a Comedy.
Jessica graduated magna cum laude with departmental honors from Columbia University, where she received a B.A. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology (focus on North American Settler Colonialism). She studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and classical ballet and Swedish in Stockholm. She grew up in New Milford, Connecticut, where she danced professionally as a teen with BLUDance Theatre and as a guest artist with Pilobolus.
As a writer, Jessica's second play "Georgie D." was developed in the Chain Theatre Playwriting Lab, where it received a full workshop production in New York in the summer of 2021. She was a finalist for the Theater Masters Take Ten 2020 Festival, and a semifinalist for the Athena Project's 2020 Plays in Progress Series. She has developed plays with the Workshop Theater, who presented a reading of her play "New Canaan" starring Debra Jo Rupp in the fall of 2021. Her work has been presented by TEDx Asbury Park, the Full Circle Theatre Collaborative's New Works Festival, the Boston Theater Marathon, the NYU Tisch Bespoke Play Zoom Festival, and the NYU Tisch Critical Response Process Workshop. She has published plays with Smith and Kraus, and also some scripts literary magazine. She began her writing training at Los Angeles City College, where she won the 2019 Cinema and Television Department's Best Screenplay Award for her television pilot "Filly." She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2021 where she was the recipient of the John Golden Playwriting Prize, awarded by the MFA faculty. She is currently in residence with the Echo Theater Company's Los Angeles Young Playwrights program.
As a producer, Jessica has developed original plays and managed productions off-Broadway in New York, in Los Angeles, and multiple turns at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her award-winning productions have been featured in or reviewed by The New York Times, Variety, W Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Post, Newsweek, Time-Out NY, The Village Voice, USA Today, Backstage Magazine, The Scotsman, The Edinburgh Evening News, The Stage UK, The LA-ist, and numerous other national and international publications.
As an actress, Jessica has performed lead roles off-Broadway in New York, in Los Angeles, the National Black Theater Festival, and multiple turns at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She has also appeared in several award-winning independent films, and as a bunch of different nurses on a bunch of different daytime dramas. She won the Most Unleashed Performance Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the Outstanding Theatre Performance Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and was nominated for a Stage Scene LA Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Lead Actress in a Comedy.
Jessica graduated magna cum laude with departmental honors from Columbia University, where she received a B.A. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology (focus on North American Settler Colonialism). She studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and classical ballet and Swedish in Stockholm. She grew up in New Milford, Connecticut, where she danced professionally as a teen with BLUDance Theatre and as a guest artist with Pilobolus.
