Quiara Hudes Named 2008-2009 Aetna New Voices Fellow
at Hartford Stage

Playwright is Yale Alumna; Wrote the Book for Tony Award-Winning In the Heights

 

September 18, 2008/Hartford, CT . . . Acclaimed playwright Quiara Hudes will be the Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford Stage during the 2008-2009 season.  Her recent Broadway hit In the Heights took New York by storm and won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical.  The year-long fellowship at the Tony Award-winning theatre includes the commissioning of a new work to be presented in the fall of 2009, a reading of her 2007 Pulitzer Prize-finalist play Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue at this season's Brand:NEW Fall Festival of New Work, a reading of her new play 26 Miles during the winter, and the mentoring of young playwrights through Hartford Stage Education Department's Write On! program.  This season marks the fourth year of Aetna's sponsorship of the fellowship.

Hartford Stage Artistic Director Michael Wilson says of the playwright, "Quiara Hudes is one of the most original and exciting theatrical artists creating today, setting audiences on fire with award-winning plays and musicals like In the Heights, Elliot, Yemaya's Belly, and The Adventures of Barrio Grrrl!  She harnesses the full power of theatre to tell a good story, and deliver a message.  I'm thrilled she chose Hartford Stage as her artistic home for the next year."

Quiara Hudes wrote the book for In the Heights, which was awarded the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical.  Her recent play, Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  Her new play, 26 Miles, will premiere at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in March 2009.  Quiara's honors include the Lucille Lortel Award Award for Outstanding Musical, the HOLA Award for Achievement in Playwriting, and the Clauder Prize for her first play, Yemaya's Belly.  She has degrees from Yale and Brown Universities, is a resident writer at New Dramatists, and a previous Page 73 Playwriting Fellow.  She was born and raised in West Philadelphia, where she began composing music and writing.

The Aetna Foundation, sponsor of the New Voices Fellowship, is the independent charitable and philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc.  Founded in 1972, the Foundation helps build healthy communities by promoting volunteerism, forming partnerships and funding initiatives that improve the quality of life where our employees and customers live and work.