MEET THE 2009 WRITERS
THE WORD EXCHANGE
U.S. / México Playwright Exchange Program

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Maria Alexandria Beech (translator, HITLER IN MY HEART) is the recipient of The Aspen Theatre Master's Visionary Playwright's Award in 2009. As part of the award, Alex attended The Aspen Ideas Festival, and is commissioned by Primary Stages Theatre and Theatre Masters to write a full-length play based on the festival. Alex graduated cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in Literature Writing at Columbia University where she earned an MFA as a recipient of the Williams Foundation Fellowship and the Dean's Fellowship. Alex has worked as a television news reporter and producer, emerging markets analyst and marketing strategist at Lehman Brothers. Her articles have been published by Lehman Brothers, Veneconomy, El Universal, Barclays Capital, The New Leaders, and other publications. In 2006, her play Breaking Walls was produced at The Cherry Lane Theatre as part of its Cherry Pit Late Nite Series. Her Spanish translation of The Cook, by Eduardo Machado, premiered at The Stages Theatre in Houston. The Soft Room was performed at the Culture Project's Impact Festival. Blue Box Productions presented her plays, Bat in Iraq, Your Face, Designer X, and The Times at Sticky. The Inventor of Manatees, was performed at the Flea Theatre as part of Stupid: The Plays. In 2007, Bat in Iraq was performed in the Insurgency/Counter-Insurgency Theatre Project at The Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.  In 2006 and 2007, her plays, Lima Beams, Breaking Walls, and Black Roses were semi-finalists in the Cherry Lane Mentor Project. As a member of the Hispanic Playwrights Lab at Intar, her play Cast Aside was performed in Bus Stop. For the past four seasons, Alex has been a member of The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages Theater in New York, where her plays, Saving the Lives of Strangers, Charity, and Bonds, set at Lehman Brothers in 1999, were performed in readings. As a translating playwright at the Lark Play Development Center's US/Mexico Exchange Program in 2008, Alex participated in the workshop of Luis Ayllon's The Camels.  Her plays Designer X and Your Face, and her one woman show, What Are You Doing Here, were performed at The Planet Realities Festival in June. Lima Beans was presented in a reading by Teatro Luna in Chicago in July of 2009. Alex is currently workshopping What Are You Doing Here in her writer's group at Primary Stages Theater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Andy Bragen (translator, A LOVER'S DISMANTLING: FRAGMENTS OF A SCENIC DISCOURSE) a graduate of Brown University’s MFA Program in Literary Arts, was the winner of the 2007 Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission.  Other honors include a 2009-2010 LMCC Workspace Residency, a Tennessee Williams Fellowship from Sewanee, and a Jerome Fellowship.   The Hairy Dutchman, commissioned by the University of Rochester, was produced at the university in April 2009.  His second collaboration with jazz saxophonist John Ellis, The Ice Siren, premiered at the Jazz Gallery in May 2009.  Spuyten Duyvil was produced by Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep. in July 2008.  Greater Messapia was produced at Queens Theatre in the Park in March 2004.  Also a translator, Andy works directly from French and Spanish, and with a co-translator from the Japanese.  Vengeance Can Wait was produced at PS122 in April 2008.  Other plays and translations have been seen and heard at numerous theatres in New York and elsewhere.  More information is available at www.andybragen.com. 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Maria Fernanda Coppel (Translator, GOURMET HOMICIDE: OR THE FINE ART OF MURDER) was born in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico, and raised in San Diego California. A poet and playwright, she received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU with a concentration in Playwriting. Her thesis play, Chimi-Changas and Zololft was nominated for the Goldberg Award (2009) and won the Asuncion Queer Latino Festival at Pregones Theater (2009). She received NYU’s John Holden Playwriting Award upon her spring 2009 graduation. Fernanda is currently in the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellowship Program at the Juilliard School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Irena de Villers (Translator,QUETZALCOATL PUDDLE) Actress and playwright born in Mexico City. She studied acting at the Forum for Contemporary Theatre with Ludwik Margules, David Olguin, and Julieta Egurrola. She is also a graduate of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara with a bachelor's in Psychology. She also has a degree in Contemporary Art from the Autonomous Institute of Mexico. Film and TV credits include "El Diván de Valentina" and "XY La Revista" for Channel 11, "Gregoria la Cucaracha" for Channel 22, "Capadoccia" for Argos Television, and "Decisiones" for Telemundo. You can also see her in Patricia Arriaga's short film El Pez Dorado and Ariel Gordon's feature film Caja Negra. In 2001 she performed in the competition Elena Garro, organized by SOGEM, with the play The Suicide of Mr. Noun and a Silence which won third place. Her writing credits include: Appetite (2003) which she co-directed and presented at the Chapel Theatre in Mexico City, X Steps co-written with Alfonso Cárcamo and presented by the Artistic Festival 02 for the Forest Cultural Center, and Quetzalcoalt Puddle (2010). She is a founding member of the playwrights collective Achilles Tendon. In 2005 she was part of the lab Three Cubed which was sponsored by the National Institute of Fine Arts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edgar Álvarez Estrada (GOURMET HOMICIDE: OR THE FINE ART OF MURDER) Playwright and Director. Playwright, director, and producer. He has worked in opera, radio, theatre, and television as a writer and director. He has a Bachelor's in Administration from ITAM and is a graduate of SOGEM's Playwriting School. His directing professors include Ludwik Margules (Forum for Contemporary Theatre), Sergio Jiménez (Televisa) and José Caballero (House of Theatre). He was a pupil of the playwriting labs led by Hugo Argϋelles, Jesús González Dávila, and The Royal Court Theatre in London. Playwriting credits include: What Scissors Took Away directed by Miguel Ángel de Bernardi; The Seals Applause directed by Ricardo Andrade Jardí; A Conference for Equality and Justice directed by Sisu González, and Loose and Cooperative directed by José Luis Saldaña. He wrote and directed Ellioko, an arrow amongst brothers and Gourmet Homicides. He adapted Haendel's opera Teseo and Tartuffe's Moliere. In 2007 his play I promise you, chained received an Honorable Mention from the National Award of Dramaturgy. He has been a fellow of IMCINE-SOGEM, FONCA, GDF's Secretary of Culture, and the program Mexico in a Scene. Founder and member of the Young Mexican Playwrights Collective: Achilles Tendon. He is the current coordinator for Theatre in Movement , an experimental lab that brings together Mexico's next generation of actors, playwrights, and directors. He wrote and directed the TV Campaign for the Red Cross International Committee (2007) which was broadcast throughout Latin America and dealt with themes such as: children soldiers, women and war, the conservation of cultural heritage, missing people, racism, and inequality. He has written scripts for TV Azteca, Televisa, and UTE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elena Guiochins (A LOVER'S DISMANTLING: FRAGMENTS OF A SCENIC DISCOURSE)) Playwright, director, and educator. She has penned more than ten plays and most of them have been published and produced. Amongst them: Stop Talking, Plagiarism, Juan Volado, Beautifully Atrocious, and Free Fall. She has been the recipient of the Oscar Liera Award and the National Award for Children's Dramaturgy. As a playwright she has participated in several international festivals, which include Mousson d`eté and the Neue Dramatik of the Schaubühne. She has been awarded the FONCA scholarship on several occasions and has been an Artist-In-Residence in the United States and Canada. Her recent play The Turning of the Lamps was produced by the National Theatre Company of the National Institute of Fine Arts on October of this year and is currently playing in Mexico City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rogelio Martinez (translator, QUETZALCOATL PUDDLE) Plays include When Tang Met Laika (Sloan Grant/ Denver Center/ Perry Mansfield), All Eyes and Ears (INTAR), Fizz (NEA/ TCG Grant/ Besch Solinger Productions at the Ohio Theatre), Learning Curve (Smith and Krauss New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2005/ Besch Solinger Productions at Theater Row), I Regret She’s Made of Sugar (Princess Grace Award), Arrivals and Departures (Summer Play Festival), and Union City... (E.S.T, winner of the James Hammerstein Award).  In addition, his work has been developed and presented at the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, and the Magic Theater, among others. Mr. Martinez is an alumnus of New Dramatists and his plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing. He has received commissions from the Atlantic Theater Company, the Arden Theater Company, Denver Center Theater, and South Coast Repertory. Mr. Martinez teaches playwriting at Goddard College, Montclair University, and Primary Stages. In addition, he runs the Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab at INTAR, and is a member of the Dorothy Strelsin Writer’s Group at Primary Stages. Mr. Martinez was born in Sancti-Spiritus , Cuba, and came to the U.S. in 1980 on the Mariel boatlift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Noé Morales Muñoz (HITLER IN MY HEART) Playwright, essayist, and critic. In 2008 his plays The Pro Men and Dysphoria premiered, and were produced throughout Mexico. In 2007 he won the National Theatre Essay Award INBA, CITRU, Paso de Gato and he was part of the International Residency at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He has been a fellow of the Mexican Letters Foundation (2003-2004) and of FONCA's Young Creators Program (2004-2005). In 2001 he became the theatre critic for La Jornada Semanal and has since collaborated with several national and international publications. He recently produced the dance theatre piece Wandering Migrants, directed by the prestigious choreographer Alicia Sánchez.

 

 
 
 

©2004 Lark Play Development Center