ABSTRACT
Cuban-born playwright María Irene Fornés (1930–2018) holds an honored and unique place in American theatre. Over a forty-year career, she wrote fifty plays in different genres, each challenging traditional dramatic forms and commercial Broadway offerings; directed her own works with scrupulous precision, becoming a model for others to follow; and taught her methods of dramatic creation to a new generation of aspiring, mostly Latino/a, playwrights. Never a familiar name outside the Off- and Off-Off Broadway movements she helped establish, Fornés, nevertheless, leaves a legacy few American playwrights can claim.
