100 Hispanic and Latino Americans Who Shaped American History by Rick Laezman

Author:Rick Laezman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

MARÍA IRENE FORNÉS

1930–2018

♦After emigrating from Cuba at the age of fifteen, MARÍA IRENE FORNÉS became a successful playwright in the United States. She produced plays on a variety of themes in English and Spanish. Her unusual characters and unconventional techniques made her one of the most innovative and creative playwrights in contemporary drama.

Born in Havana, Fornés came to the United States with her family after her father died. He had been an intellectual and a rebel, whose nonconformist ideas had had a profound impact on her. She did not speak English when she came to America, and she got her first job working in a ribbon factory. Fornés eventually learned English and worked as a translator. Later, she got a job as a doll maker, and at the same time, took up painting. In 1951, she became a naturalized citizen, and she spent the rest of the decade pursuing a career as a painter.

Fornés never achieved the fame she sought as a painter, but in 1960, she discovered a new passion that would prove to be her calling in life. She was assisting her partner at the time, an aspiring writer struggling with writer’s block, when she discovered that she also was very interested in writing. Her partner, Susan Sontag, went on to become a famous philosopher and critic, and Fornés took up playwriting.

Fornés published her first play, La Viuda (The Widow) in 1961. She followed that the next year with her first produced play, There! You Died, which launched her into a prolific career. Over the course of her multi-decade career, Fornés wrote and produced dozens of plays, which won her numerous awards. Among her honors are seven Obie Awards, given for the year’s best Off-Broadway shows. Her plays are renowned for their striking characters and creative forms. She has been referred to as the “Picasso of theater” for her innovative and imaginative style. Two of her most popular plays are Dr. Kheal and Fefu and Her Friends.

Many of Fornés’s plays reflect her Cuban origins. Several were written in Spanish and were produced by the International Arts Relations (INTAR), the native Spanish theater of New York. Lovers and Keepers is a musical, produced in 1986, featuring music by among others, the famous Latin jazz musician Tito Puente (see no. 43).

In 1972, Fornés cofounded the New York Theatre Strategy, which for nearly a decade helped writers produce their plays. Until the end of her life, Fornés was a dedicated teacher and helped numerous playwrights jumpstart their careers.

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