Maria Irene Fornes
Photo courtesy of Bonnie Marranca

Join us for a celebration of the publication of a new collection of plays by Maria Irene Fornes, What of the Night?,that highlights the dramaturgical and publishing aspect of bringing together the author’s texts for publication. Presented in collaboration with Bonnie Marranca, PAJ Publications.

Bonnie Marranca is co-founder and publisher of PAJ Publications/PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. She is the author of Performance Histories, Ecologies of Theatre, and Theatrewritings, and has edited several volumes, including Conversations on Art and Performance, Plays for the End of the Century, and Interculturalism and Performance. She is Professor of Theatre at The New School/Eugene Lang College.

Maria Irene Fornes (will not be present for this event) is widely admired as a playwright, director, and teacher of playwriting. A nine-time Obie Award-winner, she has written over forty plays, musicals, adaptations, and bi-lingual works. In the 1970s she helped to found the playwright-producing organization known as New York Theatre Strategy, and also began her long association with INTAR, Hispanic American Arts Center.

Morgan Jenness spent over a decade as a dramaturg at the Public Theater with both Joseph Papp and George C. Wolfe, and had the honor of becoming Maria Irene Fornes’s agent upon joining Helen Merrill Ltd. She is currently in the Literary Division at Abrams Artists Agency.

Theresa Smalec is a doctoral student at New York University. She published Spalding Gray’s Last Interview in PAJ 88 (January 2008).

Caridad Svich is a playwright, alumna of New Dramatists and founder of NoPassport. She trained with Fornes for four consecutive years at INTAR and co-edited with Maria Delgado Conducting a Life: Reflections on the Theatre of Maria Irene Fornes.

Dawn Williams is a director who worked as an assistant to Maria Irene Fornes on The Women’s Project production of her play The Summer in Gossensass in 1998.

6:30 p.m., Monday, November 10, 2008 Martin E. Segal Theatre. Free!