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Born
She was born on May 14, 1930. Born in Havana, Cuba. -
Moved to New York
Immigrated to the United States in 1945 with her sister Margarita, and mother Carmen, a former schoolteacher. Earlier that year her father passed away, Carlos, a low-level bureaucrat in Cuba’s civil service, he died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-three. -
Studied with Hofmann
In the early 1950s, she studied with Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann, whose push-pull theory of dynamic visual energies influenced her theatre work. -
Relationship with Sohmers
By 1954, Fornés had met the writer and artist's model Harriet Sohmers. They became lovers and moved to Paris where Fornés planned to study painting. But moved back to New York when the relationship ended. -
Relationship with Sontag
Fornés and Susan Sontag had a romantic relationship from 1959 to 1963. Fornés credits Sontag with inspiring her to become a playwright. Fornés says she was able to start writing a short story by sitting at their kitchen table and using a cookbook for inspiration. -
Member of Actors studio Playwrights
In the early 1960s, Fornés became a member of the Actors Studio Playwrights’ Unit, where she learned acting techniques from Lee Strasberg and Gene Frankel and applied their pursuit of replicating authentic human emotion and behavior to her playwriting. -
First Play
Fornés's first step toward playwriting involved translating letters she brought with her from Cuba that were written to her great-grandfather from a cousin in Spain. She turned the letters into a play called La Viuda (The Widow, 1961). -
Tango Palace
Tango Palace was her first produced play. Fornés is often called the American theater's "Mother Avant-Garde". -
Work almost made it to Broadway
She came close to having her work performed on Broadway in April 1966, when Jerome Robbins directed The Office starring Elaine May. But Fornes was so unhappy with how the production misrepresented her vision that she exercised her contractual right to withdraw the script. -
Awards and accomplishments
Fornés’s numerous awards include nine Obies, and in 1972 she received a Guggenheim fellowship. -
Molly's Dream
In 1973, she directed a production of her play, Molly’s Dream, and from then on directed the original productions of all of her own plays. -
Best known play
Her best-known play, Fefu and Her Friends (1977). -
Workshop
Fornés, along with Sam Shepard and Murray Mednick, founded the Padua Hills Festival and Workshop (1978-1995) in Southern California, an annual event for experimental playwriting. At Padua, she directed, wrote, and taught, creating early versions of plays like The Danube, The Conduct of Life, Mud, and Oscar and Bertha (1989). -
Educator
She was also an influential educator, teaching playwriting across the US, and especially through her founding of the Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab (HPRL 1981-1992) -
Final Play
Letters from Cuba was the final play Maria Irene wrote. -
Playwriting method
Her innovative playwriting method encompasses an experiential practice based in physicality, orality and community, to help writers generate dynamic, new play material. The elements of the “Fornés playwriting method” include centering movement, guided visualization, basic drawing, found materials (aural, written and visual) and communal writing. -
Retirement
Maria Irene Fornés retired from writing plays in 2001 due to illness. -
Diagnosed with Alzheimer
She was diagnosed with Alzheimer and moved to a nurse home in upstate New York. -
Documentary
Although she was dealing with Alzheimer, Fornes collaborated with filmmaker Michelle Memran to explore her remembered past. -
Fornés death
Fornés died at the Amsterdam Nursing Home in Manhattan on October 30, 2018.