Cristina Frias | 2024 Latina of Influence
Hispanic Lifestyle is pleased to honor award-winning Chicana-Mexican-American-Latinx Theater Artist, Actor, Community Activist, and Theater Educator Cristina Frias as a Latina of Influence. Ms. Frias will be recognized for her leadership in our community during Hispanic Lifestyle’s Connecting Latinas of Influence | Los Angeles, to be held on October 10, 2024.
Cristina Frias is an award-winning Chicana-Mexican-American-Latina Actor, Director, Professor and Community Organizer born and raised in Los Angeles. Cristina’s artistic mission is to center and uplift the theatrical and artistic voices of the Latine community on the world’s stage and screen.
Cristina is the first full-time Latina faculty in the Theater Arts Department at East LA College (ELAC 2019). “Profe Frías’” position includes being a Community Liaison to the larger Los Angeles Arts community, Co-Advisor to the Performance East Club, serving on the Professional Development and Global Education Committees . In a few short years, with the support of ELAC’s education partners, Center Theater Group, Cristina has curated a series of Guest Artist talks featuring an all-star line-up that includes Luis Alfaro, Cherríe Moraga, Marissa Chibas, Teatro Luna, Consuelo Flores, Marisela Norte, Estela Garcia, Christy Sandoval, Pepe Serna and Benjamin Benee among others. In May 2022, Cristina was invited to moderate a conversation with the iconic labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta to discuss racial equity & social justice for the college. The following year, “Profe Frias” led a historic Town Hall event at East Los Angeles College with theatrical innovator, Luis Valdez, the founder of El Teatro Campesino, and Dr. Jorge Huerta, the premiere scholar on Chicano Theater for May 2023.
Cristina’s commitment to producing culturally conscious plays, intergenerational and cross-discipline events, while connecting students with leading Latine artists, is shifting and expanding the ELAC campus culture to becoming a cultural hub. Cristina has partnered with the ELAC Media Arts Department, the Vincent Price Museum, the East LA and downtown Film Festivals to create more performance projects and opportunities for students and community members. She has been a volunteer coordinator with The Farmworker Justice Awards, giving theater students a space to work and witness the intersection of arts and activism.
Cristina continues to work as an actress in television, film and new media platforms. She can be seen in popular shows like ONE DAY AT A TIME (Netflix), FBI MOST WANTED (CBS), ANIMAL KINGDOM (TNT), THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS (CBS), the web series’ FUNNY BROWN PEOPLE, THE COUCH and most recently, in the film TRANSITION. Cristina is also known for her writing and reading on the theme of “devotion” in the Audible Original series, Talking While Female and Other Dangerous Acts created by Teatro Luna.
Other theater work includes playing Perfecta in the Truth About Perfecta written by Diane Rodriguez (Matriarch – Roots and the Wings Project), Real Women Have Curves (Pasadena Playhouse), The Motherf*Cker With A Hat (South Coast Repertory), Between Riverside and Crazy (Studio Theatre D.C.), Black Butterfly (Mark Taper/Kennedy Center), Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare Center LA). Other performances include work with the acclaimed comedy trio Culture Clash, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Cornerstone Theatre Co., Independent Shakespeare Co., LA Philharmonic@Walt Disney Concert Hall, Getty Villa, Boston Court Theatre, Watts Village Theatre Co., CASA 0101, Campo Santo, Will & Co., and Playwrights’ Arena.
In Spring of 2024, Cristina directed ELECTRICIDAD by the MacArthur Genius Playwright, Luis Alfaro. This successful production was the first time that ELAC Theater produced a Luis Alfaro play. In the Spring of 2022, Cristina made her in-person directorial debut with ELACtricity, a collage of classic Chicano/Latino works featuring a special tribute to the late trailblazing theater artist, Diane Rodriguez (Latins Anonymous and The Sweetheart Deal). This theatrical event welcomed the extended Los Angeles community and celebrated a historic timeline of notable Latinx works including El Teatro Campesino and Latina Theater Lab alongside original student work. In 2020, Cristina directed East Los Rising, a devised project commemorating the 50-year anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium and an artistic offering to the social justice movements of the time. She led the cast in Zoom interviews with local artists, community elders, activists, and Vietnam vets. The cast transcribed the interviews, crafted the script and culminated with a live-streamed filmed production. Both of these productions laid the foundation for Chicano Theater 121, a course that Profe Frias developed and got approved as an official GE accredited class. TA 121 is now offered in the ELAC Theater Department both in-person and on-line.
Cristina is the recipient of several Artist-In-Residence Awards from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, a recipient of the CCI Investing in Artist Grant, a selected participant in the prestigious Fornés playwriting workshop, a nominee for the Beutner Award for Excellence in the Arts (CalArts), and a semi-finalist for CTG’s Sherwood Award 2018. She performed the two person show, Faces of America, with Will & Co throughout the United States and has toured her solo work, All Aboard and Chican-Inca: From East LA to Machu Picchu to Edinburgh, Scotland, Paris, France and East Africa (Rwanda and Uganda). Cristina participated in the Hemispheric Institute (HEMI) “Encuentros” in NYC, Peru and Mexico.
Cristina has an MFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts (CALARTS) where she performed in the inaugural Duende CalArts production, Piedra de Sol by Octavio Solis, a collaboration with Mexican Director, Maria Morett. In 2015, she was invited to represent Duende founder, Marissa Chibas at the Latinx Theater Commons’ Carnaval of New Latina/o Work in Chicago. Cristina holds a BA in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley, and a certificate from LAMDA Summer Shakespeare Intensive (London). She completed a 1-year study abroad in Madrid, Spain through Saint Louis University.
Cristina is a founding member of the seminal San Francisco Latina Theatre Lab. An ensemble of Latinas who wrote, performed, and toured original work throughout the 90’s. She is a proud member of Hero Theatre Company, Latinx Theatre Alliance, and the SAG-AFTRA-AEA actor unions.
NOMINATION STATEMENT
It is with great pleasure that I nominate Professor Cristina Frias as a Latina of Influence. I recognize the value of her contributions to East Los Angeles Community College Theatre department, to the local Los Angeles theatre world and to her community.
In 2019, Cristina Frias became the first full-time Latinx faculty in the Theatre Arts Department at East LA College. With her position came great responsibility, since ELAC’s student population is 77% Latino/Hispanic.
In a relatively short time, Professor Frias has transformed the theatre department by offering innovative Chicano Theatre classes, producing culturally conscious plays and intergenerational and cross-discipline events, while connecting students with leading Latinx artists. Cristina Frias has literally shifted and expanded the ELAC campus culture into a significant Latino cultural hub.
As a teacher, Cristina shows great care and enthusiasm for her students. She is dedicated, tireless and strives to empower and amplify her students’ voices to improve equity and inclusion, both in the theatre and in the community.
Importantly, Cristina Frias has proven to be a much-needed Latina role-model and mentor for her students in the East Los Angeles Theatre department.
She is deserving to be called a Latina of Influence.
Respectfully,
Roxanne Frias
