Cheryl Ann Costa

Author and playwright who draws on her transgender experience to create innovative pieces of art

Cheryl Ann Costa is a 21st century Renaissance woman. She is an engineer for a Top Fortune 100 Corporation; a practicing Buddhist Yogi, published playwright, as well as an executive producer for a small dinner theater in New York.

Recently, she launched a 60-seat live studio theatre in Syracuse, specializing in one-act plays by new playwrights. The theatre, named Tara Stage, houses their own in-house repertory company called Dragon Lady Players.

Costa has been working with the theatre since she was 15, but it was almost 22 years before she discovered her talent as a playwright.

Her new one-act comedy, titled “The Meeting,” is scheduled to debut at the Silver Spring Stage in Washington DC for the stage’s annual One-Act festival in August 2009. The play is set in a JK Rowling universe during the last years of the George W. Bush Administration. Bureaucrats from the Department of Homeland Security take an unexpected meeting with staffers from the US Department of Magic.

In addition to writing plays, Costa has authored a detective novella series “Lana Litvak – The Consultant” and contributed to the new book “Adirondack Mysteries.”

Her presentation touches upon all of these accomplishments, while also discussing her journey through life with courage, conviction, and humor. She shares her very personal story of growing up as a small town boy and serving in the military, then becoming a woman and evolving to become an outspoken transgender advocate within corporate America. Cheryl challenged the boundary of gender when she transitioned from male to female in the mid nineteen-eighties.

In her multi-media presentation "The Diversity Story" Cheryl Ann draws on her experience and knowledge of transgender issues and a highly unique life experience. She discusses the complex topic of "Sex & Gender” from the perspective of having lived on both sides of the proverbial gender fence.