 | The Fornes Frame: Contemporary Latina Playwrights and the Legacy of Maria Irene Fornes Subjects: Hispanic American women dramatists; Fornes Maria Irene -- Influence; Cram Cusi -- Criticism and interpretation; Hudes Quiara Alegría -- Criticism and interpretation; Romero Elaine (Elaine D.) -- Criticism and interpretation; Svich Caridad -- Criticis; A key way to view Latina plays today is through the foundational frame of playwright and teacher Maria Irene Fornes, who has trained a generation of theatre artists and transformed the field of American theatre. Fornes, author of Fefu and Her Friends and Sarita and a nine-time Obie Award winner, is known for her plays that traverse cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic borders. In The Fornes Frame: Contemporary Latina Playwrights and the Legacy of Maria Irene Fornes , Anne García-Romero considers the work of five award-winning Latina playwrights in the early twenty-first century, offering her unique perspective as a theatre studies scholar who is also a professional playwright. The playwrights in this book include Pulitzer Prize-winner Quiara Alegría Hudes; Obie Award-winner Caridad Svich; Karen Zacarías, resident playwright at Arena Stage in Washington, DC; Elaine Romero, member of the Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit in Chicago, Illinois; and Cusi Cram, company member of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York City. Using four key concepts--cultural multiplicity, supernatural intervention, Latina identity, and theatrical experimentation--García-Romero shows how these playwrights expand past a consideration of a single culture toward broader, simultaneous connections to diverse cultures. The playwrights also experiment with the theatrical form as they redefine what a Latina play can be. Following Fornes's legacy, these playwrights continue to contest and complicate Latina theatre. Anne García-Romero is a playwright and theatre studies scholar. Her plays include Paloma , Provenance , Earthquake Chica , Mary Peabody in Cuba , Mary Domingo , Juanita's Statue , and Santa Concepción . She has published numerous articles on Latina/o theatre, community-based theatre, and playwriting pedagogy. She is a founding member of the Latina/o Theatre Commons, and is the Thomas J. and Robert T. Rolfs Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Television and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. |
