Quiara Alegría Hudes

Alumni Playwright

2005 -- 2012

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 will premiere next season at The Goodman Theatre. 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. Hudes was born and raised in Philadelphia, where she recently returned to receive a Resolution from the City of Philadelphia. Her first play was produced in the tenth grade by Philadelphia Young Playwrights, where she now serves as a board member and mentor to other young writers. After graduating from public school, she received a 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.

ND Activity

Creativity Fund
Creativity Fund
The Creativity Fund blends the flexibility of a one-day play reading with the intensive focus of a two-week workshop, providing ten to fifteen playwrights per year the opportunity to program three to five day workshops on an ad hoc basis. Creativity Fund workshops are structured according to each writer's needs at any stage of development and are funded through a lead grant from the Andew W. Mellon Foundation.
Nocturnal Commissions
Nocturnal Commissions
Nocturnal Commissions is a marathon evening of instant theatre, New Dramatists style. First, the opportunity to commission new plays by New Dramatists resident and alumni playwrights is auctioned to the highest bidder; second, the writer and their winning bidder meet for a lightning-fast commission; third, each writer has about 20 minutes to create a new short theatre piece, monologue, or song; fourth, the plays are rehearsed upstairs while the audience has dinner downstairs; and last, all the evening's commissioned pieces are presented by a first-rate company of actors and directors.
Pen & Swill
Pen & Swill
Pen & Swill is a catch-all phrase for events designed to stimulate discussion among the resident playwright company on artistic and professional issues. Some are private-just for resident writers-most are open to the public, and they almost always include drinks and snacks.
Writers' Executive Committee
Writers' Executive Committee
The Writers' Executive Committee is a voluntary grouping of resident playwrights who meet throughout the year to discuss and make decisions concerning the work of New Dramatists and to help guide the organization.