About the Playwright
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Born in the US of Cuban-Argentine-Spanish-Croatian parents, I have felt in a strange kind of exile even while growing up as an “American.” This sense of dislocation extends to the fact that as a child and adolescent, I lived in several states: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, Utah, New York, and California, not to mention many cross-country road trips in between. The nomadic strain was thus instilled in me and has become an inevitable part of my writing vision. Explorations of wanderlust, dispossession, biculturalism, bilingualism, construction of identity, and the many different emotional terrains that can be inhabited onstage form the basis of my plays and other writing projects. Visions of migration (both physical and spiritual) dominate the plays, which have become, in turn, documents of internal diasporas. |
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Caridad Svich received the 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement and a 2018 Tanne Foundation Award, as well as the Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement in Professional Theatre from ATHE. Her play RED BIKE is the recipient of an NNPN Rollling World Premiere. She also received an NNPN rolling world premiere and a 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award for her play GUAPA, a 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS (based on Isabel Allende's novel), and has twice won the National Latino Playwriting Award, including in the year 2013 for her play SPARK. Key works include 12 OPHELIAS, ALCHEMY OF DESIRE/DEAD-MAN'S BLUES, ANY PLACE BUT HERE, FUGITIVE PIECES, IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART and JARMAN (all this maddening beauty). She is also a theatrical translator, chiefly known for translations of the plays of Federico Garcia Lorca. Her plays have been seen across the US and abroad at diverse venues, among them Denver Center Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, San Diego Repertory Theatre, 59E59, The Women's Project, Gala Hispanic Theatre, Milagro Theatre Group, Borderlands, Phoenix Theatre, Teatro Mori (Chile), Artheater (Cologne), Ilkhom Theatre (Uzbekistan), and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She sustains a parallel career as a lyricist, editor, freelance arts journalist, and educator. Her works are published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Broadway Play Publishing, Intellect UK, Manchester University Press, Eyecorner Press, Seagull Books, StageReads and more. She has edited several books on theatre and performance, among them FIFTY PLAYWRIGHTS ON THEIR CRAFT (Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama). She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, Associate Editor of Contemporary Theatre Review for Routledge UK, Drama Editor of Asymptote literary journal, contributing editor of TheatreForum, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press, and serves on the advisory board of the US-Mexico Exchange Program at the Lark Play Development Center, and Global Performance Studies journal. She holds an MFA from UCSD, and also trained for four consecutive years with Maria Irene Fornes.
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Caridad Svich's official website
Caridad Svich on Twitter
American Theatre podcast with Caridad Svich
Caridad Svich's contributions to blog site, Howlround
Caridad Svich on Twitter
American Theatre podcast with Caridad Svich
Caridad Svich's contributions to blog site, Howlround
Production History
Caridad Svich's adaptation of Julia Alvarez's novel was originally commissioned by Repertorio Espanol in New York City and premiered in Spanish during February of 2011.
Review of the production: Backstage
Review of the production: Backstage
Additional Productions |
- Stageworks, Tampa Bay FL (2018) bilingual production; Interview
- Teatro Vista, Chicago IL (2016) English production; Review
- San Diego Repertory, San Diego CA (2014) English production; Review
- Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN (2013) bilingual production; Review
- Teatro Paraguas, Santa Fe NM (2013) English production; Review
