Meet the Ladies of Alcyone Part Two: The Future- Caridad Svich

Caridad Svich is a playwright, translator, songwriter & editor of Cuban-Spanish-Argentine-Croatian descent. She was profiled in the July/August 2009 issue of American Theatre magazine. She’s received, among others, the 2009 Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, a Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Bunting fellowship, TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Grant, short-listed three times for the PEN USA-West Award in Drama and is an entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino Literature. She holds an MFA in Theatre-Playwriting from UCSD. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, contributing editor of TheatreForum, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge/UK), affiliate artist of New Georges, and founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press. She is currently at work on 4 new plays: A Little Story, In Your Arms, For Love (freely inspired by Euripides’ Alcestis) and stage adaptation of Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies, which is scheduled to premiere February 2011 in NYC.

2009-2010 world premieres: stage adaptation of Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits at Repertorio Espanol/NY (winner of 7 HOLA Awards including Outstanding Achievment in Playwriting, and 3 Premios ACE) under Jose Zayas’ direction; it will receive regional premieres at Denver Theatre Center in Denver/CO and Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis/MN in fall 2010, and is published in TheatreForum No. 35 journal. Instructions for Breathing at Passage Theatre/NJ under Daniella Topol’s direction, and Wreckage at Crowded Fire Theatre/CA. Mid-west premiere of 12 Ophelias at TrapDoor Theatre/IL, and developmental premiere of new play commission from Mark Wing-Davey and NYU’s Graduate Acting Program entitled Rift at Tisch School of the Arts December 2009 under Seret Scott’s direction. Her translation of Alfredo Hinojosa’s Deserts was featured in the Goodman Theatre’s 2010 Latino Theatre Festival, and her translation of Angels Aymar’s Solavaya was featured in the 2010 Prelude Festival/Spotlight Catalonia at Martin E Segal Theatre Center/CUNY Graduate Center. Spanish-language premieres abroad: The House of the Spirits at Teatro Mori Parque Arauco in Santiago, Chile; Iphigenia…a rave fable at Teatro Mexico in Quito, Ecuador, and Any Place But Here in Havana, Cuba.

Other recent work and key career credits: adaptation/translation of Lope de Vega’s comedy The Labyrinth of Desire at Miracle Theatre/OR; 12 Ophelias in a site-responsive Woodshed Collective production at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn; The Tropic of X at ARTheater-Cologne (Germany); Thrush at Salvage Vanguard Theatre/TX; US adaptation of the Serbian dark comedy Huddersfield as a TUTA production at Victory Gardens Theatre/IL, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable) at 7 Stages/GA, and Son of Semele/CA; translation of Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba at Pearl Theatre/NY; multimedia collaboration The Booth Variations at 59 East 59th Street Theatre/NY and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues at Cincinnati Playhouse (Rosenthal New Play Prize) under Lisa Peterson’s direction, Any Place But Here at Theater for the New City/NY under Maria Irene Fornes’ direction, Fugitive Pieces at Kitchen Dog Theater/TX, and Salvage Vanguard Theatre/TX. Additional Awards/Residencies: Whitfield Cook Award, National Latino Playwriting Award, NEA/TCG Residency at Mark Taper Forum Theatre,

International: Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Royal Court Theatre, Actors Touring Company/UK at the Euripides’ Festival in Monodendri, Greece. She’s taught at Yale School of Drama, Bard College, Bennington College, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, UCSD, University of Rochester, and more. Archives: University of Miami Cuban/Latino Digital Archive/FL, and the Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute, Ohio State University. Her works may be accessed at the Latina Literature and Women’s Drama collections of www.alexanderstreetpress.com.