Christopher Trela is an award-winning publicist, writer, editor, photographer, and playwright, and the author of Newport Beach Centennial: Celebrating a Century, a coffee-table photo/essay book. He is the dining columnist for the Newport Beach Independent, 
and is the writer/editor for the Off the Menu OC website and blog (3rd Place for Best Blog at the 2012 OC Press Club Journalism Awards). 


Writing & Editing

Christopher has had more than 1,700 articles published in various newspapers and magazines over the past 22 years. He has contributed arts, food and wine, health, fitness, business and travel articles to OC Metro, Metro Menus, OC Family, Coast Magazine, Performing Arts Magazine, Westways Magazine, Dining Out Magazine, and many others. He also spent several years as a writer under contract with Disneyland's Special Events department.  

Christopher is working on a new book project called FAST PR: A 60 Minute Guide to Getting Publicity. 

Publicity

Christopher has provided public relations services for a variety of clients, including Laguna Playhouse, Irvine Barclay Theatre, Long Beach Symphony, Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to the Beatles, Chance Theater, MiMedia Productions, Overture, Young Singers of OC, Balboa Performing Arts Theatre, Emilio & Modern Gypsy (flamenco guitarist), One Earth/One Dream EcoFest, OC Fair, Discovery Science Center, Southern California Home & Garden Show, Imagination Celebration, and many other arts-related clients.  

He spent four years as the Director of Public Relations & Publications for Orange County’s Pacific Symphony (the third-largest orchestra in California), and was the PR Liaison for the Newport Beach Centennial Celebration. 

Photography

As a photographer, his work has appeared in the L.A. Times, The Orange County Register, OC Weekly, OC Metro, OC Wine/OC Menus, Coast, and many other publications throughout Southern California. He has provided press photography services for professional theaters, and has many years of special event, corporate and wedding photography experience.

Playwriting

In 1997, Christopher founded New Voices Playwrights Workshop & Theatre, a consortium of playwrights, actors and directors who regularly present productions of new works at various theaters in Orange County. Christopher has written and directed more than 20 of his own short and full-length plays, and has directed plays for other theater groups. His plays have been produced at theaters in Orange County, Los Angeles and New York, including a series of special science-theater shows for Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana.

Christopher studied playwriting at South Coast Repertory with Cecilia Fannon, and took a masters class in directing from SCR Associate Artist Mark Rucker. For his efforts in promoting and developing new plays and playwrights, The Daily Pilot newspaper named Christopher “Man of the Year in Theater” for 1998.


Music In addition to playing drums in the band Desperate Living and electric violin in the band Primal Dream, Christopher has produced numerous band demos and managed/promoted many local musical acts, including Middle Class, Andrea Maybaum, and The Squares. Christopher also wrote a one act musical called LEASE (a parody of RENT) that had several stagings in Orange County.  

Affiliations and Awards