Biography
Cristina Morrison is a multi-talented artist. An actress-singer, who was born in Miami, Florida, a multicultural woman, not only because of her origin but also because of her life experiences. Cristina is curious, outgoing and her love for life has led her to live in various parts of the world.
From her early years she showed interest in performing arts. At twelve she knew in her heart that music, dance, and acting were her passion and were going to be her destiny. By age sixteen, in Quito, Ecuador, her mother�s native country, Morrison was cast to play an abused young wife in a television pilot. A year after, she is to substitute an actress in her first play and debuts on stage.
After high school her mother moved to Italy with her.
Cristina enrolled in �La Scaletta Theatre School�, where her first formal drama training began. She lived in Rome for five years and learned Italian perfectly.
A few years later, at twenty-two she auditioned and got accepted into one of America�s most prestigious drama schools, the �American Academy of Dramatic Arts� from which she graduated in 1993. There she learned most of the tools she draws on for her craft. Morrison returned to Ecuador and started working immediately in leading roles. Some of them are: �Los Sangurimas�, a mini-series based on Ecuadorian magic realism literature from the 1930�s and �Devil in Paradise�, a docudrama reflecting the human stories throughout the centuries in the Galapagos Islands where she played a German baroness. But Cristina being a creative soul craved for something more and seeing the need for more performance spaces in the country she got together with another artist and turned a farfetched dream into reality.
They opened a 110-seat theatre from scratch, which got financed by private investors, this being a whole new concept for such a venture in this South American country. Cristina performed here her one-woman show �First Love� based on a Samuel Beckett short story and had many concerts with her jazz band �The Baroness and her Lovers�. But her nomad life and her love for nature took her to the Galapagos Islands where she stayed for five years. Cristina continued to be active in her career by dedicating her time mainly to music. She would fly to Quito and other cities for gigs. She also took part in the Ecuadorian version of the �Vagina Monologues� and acted for television.
In 2004 she decided to go one step further by moving back to her native town of Miami where she now works both for the English and Spanish market, in theatre, tv, and music. In 2006 she landed two leading roles for a theatre company where Morrison�s challenge started by portraying Fassbinder�s famous �Petra von Kant� and received great press reviews. Her audience considers it like if it was: �written for her�. Nevertheless, Morrison�s also holds ties with Ecuador and keeps working there, as in 2007, in a period piece TV movie based on the biography of an Ecuadorian tyrant president, Gabriel Garcia Moreno where she palys the leading lady. In Miami she is back in the theatre, this time portraying disappeared aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, in an original piece, �Cloudcukooland�.
People and critics have defined Cristina Morrison as a charismatic dramatic actress, as a strong authentic woman, as a free spirit.
