Portrait by Parker Guidry
bio
BEA CORDELIA is an award-winning, Chicago-bred, LA-based, internationally slandered mutli-hyphenate whose work uplifts and reimagines the narratives of transgender people. A lifelong artist and a graduate of Northwestern University in Theatre (Playwriting) and Gender & Sexuality Studies, she has always approached her work with a multidisciplinary framework. Her mission is to tell new stories in new ways, at the levels of both form and content, and to weaponize vulnerability to elicit empathy across boundaries of identity and difference.
In 2018 she released her web series the T with co-creator Daniel Kyri. The pair wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the series, and were named the City of Chicago’s 2018 Filmmakers-in-Residence for its creation. Produced with Full Spectrum Features, and released by OTV | Open Television, the T won a Streamy for Best Indie Series, was named OUTtv Best Feature at Vancouver Queer Film Festival, was nominated for a Queerty for Best Web Series, and has screened in festivals across the globe.
As an actor, Bea made her television and films debuts in 2019, guest starring on NBC’s Law & Order: SVU, and was featured in indie film Working Man starring Peter Gerety and Talia Shire.
Before relocating to LA last year, she toured her “life-changing” solo show Chasing Blue to the iconic Steppenwolf Theatre and around the US; developed multimedia installation The Cosmic Body in a Salonathon residency at the University of Chicago; was named a Luminarts Cultural Foundation Creative Writing Fellow for her poem “The Future”; self-published her chapbook 28.06 // Dear Sylvia, which recounts the history and impact of the Stonewall riots; featured at the legendary Green Mill as a spoken word artist; saw productions and readings of three full-length plays and three ten-minute plays, including at the Goodman Theatre; and led many workshops for students and adults alike on the practice of art as activism. She also recently won a significant lawsuit against the City of Chicago, overturning a ban on “female” breasts in establishments with liquor licenses, and inciting more gender-inclusive language elsewhere in the ordinance.
Bea is currently writing two pilots, a feature film, and her memoir.
Photo by Glitter Guts Photography
