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Maria was born while the Great Depression taking a big toll on her upbringing as well as hers and her families econoic status.
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she was born on May 14, 1930, in Havana, Cuba. She was the last child of six children from Carmen Collado Fornes and Carlos Fornes.
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In the 1980's, she structured "The Danube" which was a drama play that talked about the difficulties of living during the war and its after affects.
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she did not attend school, she was enrolled once by her father but quickly dropped out. When she got to NY she worked at a shoe factory but shortly quit and decided to paint, and received an education in the arts scene downtown among painters, dancers, theater artists, musicians, and writers. She studied painting with Hans Hofmann.
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Her mother, Carmen, was a teacher, and her father, Carlos, a civil service employee in Cuba. She was raised in Cuba till she was 15 when her father had a heart attack then moved to New York with her sister, Margarita, and her mother for better opportunities. -
The Cuban Revolution occurred when she left Cuba, it was led by Fidel Castro. This revolution was people seeking better wages, more rights, and social justice. Although she was raised with no real economic help from the nation, she described Cuba as an "artistic environment", her father would set up contests where everyone sang the same song and best won or with poems, the best poem was chosen among the players.
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After moving with her girlfriend, Harriet Sohmer, to Paris and seeing French production of Becket's "Waiting for Godot", she was interested in theatre, specifically avant-garde drama, sometimes including feminist, gay, Hispanic, and political themes.
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Maria dated Harriet for a few years, Harriet was a writer and a model.
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She was in a relationship with writer Susan Sontag (1933-2004). They both helped each other write. Irene would write short stories by opening a cookbook at random ad using the first word of each sentence on the page as inspiration. Susan was a woman that was known as a writer, philosopher, and political activist. -
Fornes dated Susan Sontag, who dated Harriet Sohmer for a year.
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Her first step into playwright consisted her translating letters she brought from Cuba that were written to her great-grandfather by a cousin from Spain. La Viuda, The Widow was Maria's first professional play but isn't really counted by many, it was never translated. Using these letters she also created the play "There! You Died" later changed to "Tango Palace"
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Maria wrote and directed over 50 plays through the United States and internationally.
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Obie award-winning, this play play is about two escaped prisoners making it into the city, where the homeless and poor mingle with the idle rich. "Live with your own truth (whether you like it or not)".
https://www.fornesinstitute.com/about/biography -
Maria was experimenting with dramaturgical structures and made this play. During this play, the audience would move throughout the building to watch different scenes.
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Fornés taught playwriting at the INTAR Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab, which she founded. She was considered the “mother of Latinx theatre” in the United States as a result of her work as a teacher.
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sexual desires and moral values to the point of insanity
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A finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize, it combines four one-acts that follow an extended family trying to escape their past. Many of her plays consisted of poverty, torture, and AIDS.
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a young girl marries older an and has affairs and this play goes on to win an Obie award (off-Broadway theatre) for best play.
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Although at the time dealing with dementia, she collab's with Michelle Memran, a writer, to relive what she does remember.
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Before passing away, Maria won nine Obie Awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
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Maria died on October 30, 2018 in Manhattan, New York in her Nursing Home at the age of 88 due to Alzheimer's disease. She was taken care of by her friends, family, old colleagues, and her students.
