Award-winning playwright 梅林达•洛佩兹 has joined the 电子游戏软件 剧院 Department as the Rev. J. 唐纳德·莫南，S.J. Professor in 剧院 艺术s for the 2019-2020 academic year.
With a body of work that spans more than two decades, Lopez was called “one of Boston’s most important writers,wbr - fm报道. She was the 2019 recipient of both the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Award in Dramatic Writing, and the Boston Theater Critics Association’s Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence for “consistently enriching the Boston theater community as a playwright, actress and educator.”
在电子游戏软件, Lopez is teaching Contemporary American 剧院 this fall and in the spring will lead Playwriting 1. 1月, the BC 剧院 Department will stage her play “Back the Night,” which explores sexual violence on college campuses; the production will be directed by Boston-based director and educator Pascale Florestal.
J. 唐纳德·莫南，S.J., Professor in 剧院 艺术s 梅林达•洛佩兹. Photo by Adam Detour.
Lopez’s plays have been performed around the country at such notable theaters as Steppenwolf 剧院 Company, 格斯里剧院, 拉古纳剧场, Williamstown 剧院 Festival, Shakespeare and Company, The Huntington 剧院 Company, 和艺术sEmerson.
As a Cuban-American, Lopez said in a 2015 MCC interview, she intentionally places “brave, 复杂的, and uncompromising Latina women” at the center of her work, and frequently focuses on the stories of Cuban or Cuban-American characters.
Her most recent work, “《叶玛,” is an adaptation and new translation of Federico García Lorca’s play of the same name. 《叶玛, described as a woman “consumed by her dream of motherhood,” defies her husband and “confronts her community,” which ultimately “propels her into a collision with the universe that is urgent and terrible in scope.” 艺术融合 praised Lopez for “putting her own stamp on the work without disrupting or diverting the play’s dramatic contours.”
Her one-woman show “Mala,” which Lopez wrote and performed, was presented at 艺术sEmerson in 2016. “An utterly unsentimental journey towards the end of life,” according to her 网站, “the play is an irreverent exploration of how we live, cope, and survive in the moment.” WBUR’s The ARTery praised “Mala” as “an exquisitely fashioned theater piece, 充满幽默, 挫折, 和诚实,”, 波士顿杂志 called it her “most profound work yet.” “Mala” won the BTCA Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Play, and Lopez earned the 艺术s Impulse Award for Best Solo Performance.
In honor of the world premiere of “Mala”—and in recognition of her many accomplishments—Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh proclaimed October 29, 2016, as “梅林达•洛佩兹 Day” in the city, and urged “fellow Bostonians to celebrate her enormous contribution to the theatre field both locally and throughout the world.”
Lopez was Huntington 剧院 Company’s playwright-in-residence from 2013 to 2019, through the Mellon Foundation National Playwright Residency Program. Her other honors and achievements include being named a “Woman of Courage Honoree” by La Alianza Hispana; the Kennedy Center’s inaugural Charlotte Woolard Award, given to “a promising new voice in American theatre”; and awards from the Independent Reviewers of New England and BTCA for her play “Sonia Flew.”
Also an accomplished actress, Lopez has performed at regional theaters across the country. An assistant professor of playwriting at Boston University and a visiting lecturer of theatre and performance at Wellesley College, Lopez has a master’s degree in playwriting from BU and a bachelor’s degree in drama from Dartmouth College.
Offering her advice for new playwrights in a 2017 interview, she said, “Write what you want to write. 说实话. Be good to everyone you work with and work for. 听演员讲话. Have faith, have faith, have faith.”
The Monan Professorship in 剧院 艺术s was established in 2007 by a gift to 电子游戏软件 in honor of the late University Chancellor and former BC President J. 唐纳德·莫南，S.J. The position, which also commemorates the late trustee E. 保罗Robsham, enables the 剧院 Department to bring nationally and internationally known professionals to 电子游戏软件 to teach and work with undergraduate students. Previous Monan professors include actor Maurice Parent, Nederlander Executive Vice President Nick Scandalios ’87, playwright Sheri Wilner, director/actor Michelle Miller ’98, and director/actor Tina Packer, 等.
—University Communications | September 2019