Quiara Alegría Hudes received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful. Previously, her play Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue was a Pulitzer Finalist, and her most recent work, The Happiest Song Plays Last premiered at The Goodman Theatre and then in New York at Second Stage. Hudes wrote the book to the Broadway musical In the Heights, which premiered Off-Broadway and earned the Lucille Lortel Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. In the Heights transferred to Broadway where it received the Tony Award for Best Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical and was named a Pulitzer Finalist. Hudes wrote the book and lyrics for a children’s musical, Barrio Grrrl!, which premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and toured nationally. After graduating from public school, she received her B.A. in music composition from Yale and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Brown, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter, and is a resident playwright at Signature Theatre. She is the Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Writing and Theater at Wesleyan University.
There are many versions of home to me. My abuela’s kitchen, its door always open, its stove always brimming. Any library or lounge where writers are gathered. Signature captures two homes in one: a sanctuary as faithful and loving as a childhood kitchen, and a space full of challenging sparkling ideas. I will go to Signature in despair. I will go to Signature in fits of inspiration. I will remember the works of Vogel and WIlson on its stage that seeped into my DNA.”
Ms. Hudes…has a supple feel for characterization and a wide-ranging sympathy for life’s waifs and strays.”
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