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Hi, I'm Paloma mo Reno Jimenez

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and I'm a production assistant at Wondermedia

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Network. I'm excited to be guest

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hosting today's episode of Womanica.

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This Pride Month, we're talking about wordsmiths,

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women who used language to create community,

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give a voice to change, and inspire future

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generations to do the same. Today's

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Womenican inspired a generation of

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Latin X playwrights and directors,

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but remains fairly unknown, or

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perhaps more accurately, unacknowledged.

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She refused to bend to the traditional boundaries

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of theater and push the form to its creative

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limits. Let's talk about

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Maria Irene Fornes. Maria

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was born in May of nineteen thirty in Havana,

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Kua. She won by her middle

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name Irene, and was the youngest of six

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children. Her mother was

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a school teacher and her father worked in

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civil service. Dene was

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raised in a fairly poor, artistically

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rich environment where her creativity

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was allowed to flourish. Her

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father, Godlos, was set up contests where

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all the children would compete to see who could

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write the best poem or sing the best

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song. In

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nineteen forty five and his father died

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suddenly of a heart attack. After

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that, her mother immigrated to the United

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States, taking aiden It and

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her older sister Margarita with

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her. The family

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settled in New York, and it took

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on a number of jobs to help support them.

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Edena never finished high school, but

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she remained intellectually curious.

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In the nineteen fifties, she began studying

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under the tutelage of Hans Hoffmann,

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a German painter. Hoffman used

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color and shape to create dynamic, three

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dimensional images. Then

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Eden, his life took a turn, She

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decided to move to Paris and pursue

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painting with her girlfriend at the time. While

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abroad, she saw several plays,

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including an adaptation of James

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Joyce's novel Ulysses. She

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was incredibly inspired by these productions,

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and in nineteen sixty one she started

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writing her own work. Also

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started dating Susan's soundtag as

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soon to be a famous writer and critic herself.

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After moving back to the United States,

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Dena and Susan continued to inspire each

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other creatively. In

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fact, claims she started writing in

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an attempt to alleviate Susan's writer's

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block and show how easy

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it could be to put pen to paper. At

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the time, Iden used found objects

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like furniture, books, and records

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to guide her work. For instance,

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one of her writing exercises involved

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opening a cookbook to a random page

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and using the first word of each sentence

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on the page to inspire a short story.

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Edena's first play, which translates

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to the Widow. It was based on letters

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from a cousin and was written entirely

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in Spanish. From there,

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she went on to join the Actor's Studio

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playwrights unit and snuck into

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classes with well known method acting teacher

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Lee Strasburg. Studying

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under Strasburg's tutelage helped

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the Udena approach writing for theater

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on a moment to moment basis. As

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she later explained, do not

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think about where your character is going.

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The moment you do, it's over. I

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have never once, in writing a play,

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given a thought about what the scene'es about

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or what I want to say to the audience. By

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the early sixties, it was a well

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known figure in the off off Broadway theater

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scene in downtown New York. These

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tended to be smaller, more avant garde

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experimental productions. Sometimes

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a place would take place in alternative locations

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like restaurants or churches. Iidena

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loved the adventure of this kind of theater. In

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nineteen sixty five, Idena hit her

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big breakthrough with a string

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of successful plays and musicals.

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There he died in promenade, being among

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the best known.

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It was during that year that she also won

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her first Obie Award, which

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are accolades given specifically to off

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Broadway theater performances.

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She would go on to win eight more over

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the course of her career. In

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nineteen sixty eight, Edenez started

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directing as well as writing. She

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wanted to have more control over her creative

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work and bring the most authentic version

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of her words to life. During

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her tenure as a director, Edena

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worked with designers to create memorable

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sets and scenes, drawing on her

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training in the visual arts. Eden's

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most famous play, Fefu and her Friends,

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came out in nineteen seventy seven. This

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play centered around eight female characters

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who are cursing a presentation that

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they planned to give at a charity event.

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The production had four scenes that took

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place simultaneously. To

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see each portion of the play, the

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audience was physically rotated

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through space, which was an incredibly

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innovative concept at the time. Iidena

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also co founded the New York Theater Strategy

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in nineteen seventy three,

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a writer centered cooperative theater

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production company that sought to give playwrights

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more space to experiment. Edena

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wrote over fifty works for the stage

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during her lifetime. She was also

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a teacher at the inter Hispanic Playwrights

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and Residence lab which she founded. She

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resisted categorization as a Hispanic

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writer or a lesbian writer, and

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instead called on people to think of her outside

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the bounds of labels. At

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the same time, she believed in the importance

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of training the next generation of LATINX

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playwrights. She

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wanted to capture and sustain the spirit

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of her people. Later

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in life, Eden has suffered from Alzheimer's

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disease. By two thousand and

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one, this forced her into retirement.

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Her last completed play was called

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Letters to Kuba, which was inspired

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by letters from her own brother. Eden,

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his family, friends, and many adoring

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students supported her until she died

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in twenty eighteen at

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the age of eighty eight. All

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Month We're talking about Wardsmiths. For

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more information finals on Facebook and

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Instagram at Womenica Podcast

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Special Thanks to Liz and Jenny Kaplan

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for having me as a guest host. Talk

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to you tomorrow. Yeah,