María Irene Fornés (1930-2018)

Biography

María Irene Fornés (1930-2018) was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1945, she moved to New York City with her mother and sister. Largely an auto-didact, the first of her over three dozen plays, Tango Palace, was produced in 1963. Her plays include La Viuda/The Widow,Tango Palace, Fefu and Her Friends, Sarita, The Conduct of Life Manual for a Desperate Crossing (Balseros/Rafters), and Letters from Cuba. Her work was developed and produced most notably at the Signature Theatre (Fornes Season while Playwright-in-Residence), New York Theatre Strategy, Theatre Genesis, INTAR, Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, Women’s Project and Productions, and Theatre for the New City. More than just a prolific playwright, Fornés was also a director and a teacher. In addition to directing most of her own plays, Fornés also directed productions of plays by Calderon, Ibsen, Chekhov, Leo Garcia, Cherríe Moraga and Caridad Svich. Fornés taught playwriting workshops at theatres and universities around the world, including Yale, Princeton, and Brown. From 1981-1992 Fornés was the director of the International Arts Relations (INTAR) Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Laboratory, which was a national program to develop the writing of Hispanic Playwrights. A nine time Obie award winner, Fornés became known as American Theatre’s Mother of the Avant-Gard as well as the mother of Latinx theater.

Key awards and fellowships

  • PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award (2002)
  • Obie Award for Special Citations (2000)
  • Obie Award for Best New American Play (1985, 1988)
  • Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement (1982)
  • Obie Award for Direction (1984, 1979)
  • Obie Award for Playwriting (1984, 1977)
  • Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada (1972)
  • Obie Award for Distinguished Plays (1965)

Career Highlight

  • Lucille Lortel Award for Playwrights Sidewalk Inductee (2019) (posthumous)
  • Fornés was posthumously awarded a place on the Lucille Lortel Playwrights sidewalk. Similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, this permanent monument in New York is dedicated to great, off-Broadway playwrights.

Sarita

  • Genre: Drama, with music
  • Breakdown:
    • 3W Latina
    • 4M Latino (3), White (1)
  • Synopsis:
    • Set in the Bronx, New York, from 1939-1947, Sarita explores the life and love of a Cuban American woman who finds herself torn between Julio, a man who treats her poorly but cannot seem to ignore, and Mark, who she wants to love the way she loves Julio. The play with music follows Sarita on her journey from schoolgirl to young woman and explores themes of sexuality, gender, race, class, immigration and mental health.
  • Development/Production History:
    • World Premiere in 1984 at INTAR in New York City
  • Photos from production:
Sarita, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, 2010.
Pictured (L to R): Becca Ballenger, Jessica Farr.
Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
Sarita, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, 2010.
Pictured (L to R): Thomas Pecinka, Becca Ballenger.
Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

Fefu and Her Friends

  • Genre: Dramedy
  • Breakdown:
    • 7W, unspecified
  • Synopsis:
    • Set in a New England country home in 1935, Fefu and her friends follows eight women who gather together to rehearse a speech for an educational fundraising event. Over the course of a day, these women address complex issues of gender, sexuality, class and mental health. While the charismatic Fefu appears to be in control of her environment, over the course of the play it becomes clear to the audience that she, along with her friends, are caught in a struggle with an inescapable force, much larger than themselves, or the play.
  • Development/Production History:
    • World premiere in 1977 at New York Theatre Strategy, directed by María Irene Fornés
    • Revival in 2019  at Theater for the New Audience, directed by Lileana Blaine-Cruz
    • In 1996 Fornés rewrote Part II two as a single-set performance, in order to accommodate smaller theatres, while directing the play at Muhlenberg College in PA.
  • Photos from production:
Fefu and Her Friends, Theatre for a New Audience, 2019.
Pictured (L to R): Ronete Levenson, Lindsay Rico, Helen Cespedes, Jennifer Lim, and Brittany Bradford.
Photo by Henry Grossman.
Fefu and Her Friends, New York Theater Strategy, 1977.
Pictured (L to R, sitting): Connie Cicone, Margaret Harrington, Gordana Rashovich, Gwendolyn Brown, and Carolyn Hearn; standing: Rebecca Schull, Joan Voukides, Janet Biehl.
Photo by Rena Hansen.
  • Plays
    • La Viuda/The Widow (1961)
    • Tango Palace (1963)
    • Fefu and Her Friends (1977)
    • Blood Wedding (1980)
    • Sarita (1984)
    • Cold Air (1985)
    • What of the Night? (1989)
    • Manual for a desperate crossing/Balseros/Rafters (1996)
    • Letters from Cuba (2000)

Reflection on Contribution to Anti-Racist Theatre

María Irene Fornés was a prolific writer and an iconic figure in American theater. She refused to confine herself to merely writing about her experiences as a Cuban, or a woman, instead choosing to write about whatever inspired her. Fornés’s work is strikingly original. She refused to conform to established rules of playwriting, and instead allowed her characters to lead her through their story. At its core, her work asks what it means to be human. Fornés’s plays are demanding of her audience. She rarely provided easy answers, at times her plays may end with more questions than answers. While Fornés rarely wrote explicitly about the struggles of being an immigrant or person of color, when she did her plays offered both universal and specific perspectives. For example, the play Sarita reflects on what it means to be an American in a particularly Cuban context, and yet still feels applicable to the issues of immigrants as a whole. Her great success in the American theatre landscape proves that playwrights of color not only belong in American theatre, but contribute in new and ground-breaking ways. Furthermore, her refusal to only write about Cuban or Latin American experiences proves that playwrights of color deserve the chance to write about whatever they want, whenever they want and should not be forced in writing about the trauma of their race or ethnicity. When playwrights of color have the chance to fully participate in American theatre and the liberty to express themselves creatively, the American theatre is a better place.

Compiled by Elizabeth Horan, Accountancy and Film, Television & Theatre, Class of 2021