Padua

María Irene Fornés was born in Havana, Cuba on May 14, 1930. She moved with her mother and a sister to New York City in 1945. Before becoming a playwright, she was a painter who studied for a time with the Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann. Fornés taught playwriting at New York University, the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival in California, and the Intar Hispanic American Arts Center in Manhattan.

In 1965, collaborating with the composer Al Carmines, she wrote the book and lyrics for Promenade. Her other plays included Fefu and Her Friends, Mud, The Danube, The Conduct of Life, Abingdon Square, Enter the Night, and Letters from Cuba. Her plays received eight Obie awards and she received an Obie for lifetime achievement in 1982. She died on October 30, 2018 at the age of 88.

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