MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Christine Toy Johnson is an award-winning writer, actor, director, filmmaker, and advocate for inclusion based in New York City. She is the host of the Dramatists Guild’s podcast TALKBACK, distributed on the Broadway Podcast Network.

For theatre, her first play, THE NEW DEAL, was the inaugural play to be developed in Charles Randolph-Wright’s “Different Voices” program at the Roundabout Theatre Company in NYC and subsequently developed through Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Going to the River Playwriting Unit. Other plays and musicals include BROKEN GROUND (book & lyrics with composer/lyricist Jason Ma, in process/commission for Village Theatre), TRUTH AGAINST THE WORLD: THE TRIALS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT (developed in a residency at the O’Neill Theater Center, world premiere at the Kennedy/McIlwee Studio Theatre in Raleigh, NC), TILL SOON, ANNE (book & lyrics with composer Bobby Cronin, developed in residencies at the O’Neill Theater Center), THE SECRET WISDOM OF TREES (featured in Applause Books’ LATER CHAPTERS Anthology, developed in residence at The Barrow Group Theatre Company), BARCELONA (book & lyrics with composer/lyricist Jason Ma, developed at residencies at the Weston Playhouse, CAP 21 and as part of Village Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals), GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT (starring GRIMM’s Reggie Lee and Bree Turner), DIARY OF A DOMESTIC GODDESS (with Kevin Duda), MY BOYFRIEND IS AN ALIEN (AND I’M OKAY WITH THAT) (book & lyrics, with composer Bobby Cronin, commissioned and produced by Prospect Theater Company), PAPER SON (Diverse City Theatre Company, Queens Theatre in the Park), INTERNAL BLEEDING (Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, ReImagined World Entertainment’s 2011 workshop starring Daryl “Chill” Mitchell, Crossroads Theatre Company), “EVER SEE A FAT CHINESE?” (New Perspectives Theatre Company), ADVENTURES OF A FAUX DESIGNER HANDBAG (Leviathan Lab), HALO HALO BIRTHDAY (Leviathan Lab), PEACE PLAZA (Leviathan Lab), WELCOME TO TELEVISION (Barrow Group Theatre Company), TANFORAN (Barrow Group Theatre Company), EMPRESS MEI LI LOTUS BLOSSOM (commissioned by Gorilla Repertory Theatre, Women’s Theatre Festival Fringe 2020), DO THESE GENES MAKE ME LOOK FAT? (A-Squared Productions) and EXPRESSION OF REGRET (365 Women a Year Playwriting Project).

Screenplays include NO WAVE WITHOUT WIND (with Charles Randolph-Wright), JUMPING THE THIRD RAIL (winner, 2016 Meryl Streep/IRIS Writers Lab Fellowship, now titled LOOK UP), WINNING NEW YORK (screenplay & lyrics with composer Bobby Cronin, produced by New York Film Academy), FOOD LIKE LOVE (screenplay & lyrics with composer Bobby Cronin, produced by New York Film Academy), and OLD, FAT & UGLY. An anthology of her work (including her award-winning documentary “Transcending – the Wat Misaka Story”) was inducted into the Library of Congress Asian Pacific American Performing Arts Collection in 2010. She is an alumna of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and the founder of The Asian American Musical Theater Writers Project.

An avid advocate for inclusion, Christine is a member of the elected leadership of the Dramatists Guild of America and serves as Chair of their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. She is a founding member of AAPAC (Asian American Performers Action Coalition), served on the Board of the Tony honored Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts for over 15 years and the Council of Actors’ Equity Association for 28 years (chairing their Equal Employment Opportunity Committee for 22 years).

As an actor, Christine has appeared extensively on Broadway, Off-Broadway, at some of the top regional theaters across the country and on film and television.

Christine was honored by the JACL (the nation’s largest and oldest Asian American civil rights organization) in 2010 for “exemplary leadership and dedication”, the “Wai Look Award for Service in the Arts” from the Asian American Arts Alliance in 2012, and the Rosetta LeNoire Award for “outstanding contributions to the universality of the human spirit” from Actors’ Equity Association in 2013. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Certificate of Screenwriting Program at NYU. She has been a Guest Lecturer in Acting at the Yale School of Drama and the National Theatre Institute at the O’Neill.