Fornes, Maria Irene, 1930-2018

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María Irene Fornés (May 14, 1930 – October 30, 2018)[1] was a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director, who was a leading figure of the off-off-Broadway movement in the 1960s. Always an iconoclast, each of Fornés's plays was its own world, all vastly different from each other. Whereas contemporary playwrights developed a signature style, the critical factor identifying a Fornés play is not tone or structure, but an intense, relentless and compassionate examination of the human condition—especially the way intimate personal relationships are affected and infected by economic conditions. In 1965, she won her first Distinguished Plays Obie Award for Promenade and The Successful Life of 3. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize with her play And What of the Night? in 1990. Other notable works include Fefu and Her Friends, Mud, Sarita, and Letters from Cuba. Fornés became known in both Hispanic-American and experimental theatre in New York, winning a total of nine Obie Awards. Fornés is also recognized as a brilliant and exacting director and one of the most significant teachers of playwriting of her time. Her methodology was influenced by acting exercises she encountered at the Actor's Studio, and focused on getting writers into their bodies and creative unconscious minds to become intimate with their imaginations. A documentary feature about Fornés called The Rest I Make Up by Michelle Memran was made in collaboration with Fornés, and focuses on her creative life in the years after she stopped writing due to dementia.
Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn Living Theatre records, 1945-1991 The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.
referencedIn Miscellaneous screen, stage, and radio scripts, ca. 1859-2007. Harvard Theater Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
referencedIn Lucille Lortel papers The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.
creatorOf Maria Irene Fornés Papers Fales Library & Special Collections
referencedIn Judson Memorial Church Archive, 1838-1995 Fales Library & Special Collections
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Judson Memorial Church (New York, N.Y.). corporateBody
associatedWith Living Theatre (New York, N.Y.) corporateBody
associatedWith Lortel, Lucille person
employeeOf New York University corporateBody
associatedWith Saddler, Donald person
associatedWith Sontag, Susan, 1933-2004. person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Havana 02 CU
Paris A8 FR
New York City NY US
Subject
Cuban Americans
Experimental theater
Latin Americans
Off
Playwrights
Occupation
College professors
Playwrights
Activity

Person

Birth 1930-05-14

Death 2018-10-30

Female

Americans,

Cubans

Spanish; Castilian,

English

Information

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