Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes is an American playwright and author best known for writing the book for the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights. She won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful.[1]
Personal life
Hudes was born to a Jewish father and a Puerto Rican mother,[2] who raised her in West Philadelphia, where she began composing music and writing.[3] She has stated that although she is of "Puerto Rican and Jewish blood", she was "raised by two Puerto Rican parents". Her step-father was a Puerto Rican entrepreneur. She graduated from Central High School. She studied music composition at Yale University, where she earned her B.A., and playwriting at Brown University, earning an M.F.A. She is a resident writer at New Dramatists and a previous Page 73 Playwriting Fellow. For the academic year 2011–2012, Hudes, a visiting writer in the theater department at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, taught an advanced intensive course in playwriting.[4][5]
Plays
In its original Off-Broadway incarnation, In the Heights received the Lucille Lortel Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical; was named Best Musical of 2007 by New York Magazine and Best of 2007 by the New York Times; and garnered Hudes an HOLA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors.
Hudes' first play, Yemaya's Belly, received the Clauder Prize, the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting, and the Kennedy Center/ACTF Latina Playwriting Award and received numerous productions around the country.[citation needed] Her play Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2007 and has been performed around the United States, Romania and Brazil.[citation needed] Her play 26 Miles received its world premiere at The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in the 2008-09 season, directed by Kent Gash.[6] Her children's musical Barrio Grrrrl! appeared at The Kennedy Center in 2009. In 2012, her play Water by the Spoonful, which returns to the characters in Eliot, won the Pulitzer Prize after its premiere at the Hartford Stage Company.[7] Her latest play, The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third in the Eliot trilogy, opened at the Goodman Theater in Chicago on April 13, 2013.[8]
In 2010, she was named a Fellow by United States Artists.[9]
Hudes's first children's book, In My Neighborhood, was published by Arthur Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc, in 2010.
On October 27, 2011, Quiara Alegría Hudes was the second female (and first Hispanic) to be inducted into Central High School's Alumni Hall Of Fame.
See also
- List of Puerto Rican writers
- List of Famous Puerto Ricans
- Puerto Rican literature
- Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico
References
- ^ http://brooklynrail.org/2012/08/theater/music-is-her-muse-quiara-alegra-hudes-and-her-path-to-the-pulitzer
- ^ http://www.playbill.com/news/article/143122-26-Miles-Quiara-Hudes-Mother-Daughter-Road-Trip-Tale-Gets-Chicago-Premiere-Starting-Oct-16
- ^ Pincus-Roth, Zachary. "ASK PLAYBILL.COM: Those Pulitzer Finalists." Playbill.com April 20, 2007, accessed January 10, 2010.
- ^ Wesleyan University Catalog 2011-2012, A Playwright's Workshop: Advanced. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
- ^ Details on the 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners, By The Associated Press. 16 April 2012. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
- ^ http://atlanta.broadwayworld.com/article/Hudes_Returns_To_Alliance_Theater_With_26_MILES_Opens_325_20090219
- ^ http://www.pulitzer.org/biography/2012-Drama
- ^ http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season/The-Happiest-Song-Plays-Last/
- ^ United States Artists Official Website
